


those are pearls that were his eyes

by halfdesertedstreets



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: (...same with the smut), (technically there IS fluff but it's mostly there to make the angst hit harder), Amnesia, Angst and Feels, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cameos from SMH, Cunnilingus, F/M, Friends to Lovers, I just make you work for it, I promise there's a happy ending, Love Triangles, Love Triangles Where Everyone Is In Love With Everyone Else, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Polyamory Negotiations, Team WTF FTW, Ungodly Amounts of Mutual Pining to Be Quite Specific
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:40:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25990711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfdesertedstreets/pseuds/halfdesertedstreets
Summary: Connor watches closely as Tango scrolls through the pictures on his phone, that faint, familiar furrow to his brow that pushes him closer to ‘curious’ rather than ‘confused.’ Seeing it now makes something twist in Connor’s chest, makes him want to shout at him until it’s gone, until he’s back to normal—“We look happy,” Tango says abruptly. “Ford and me—we look—I look—I look so gone on her, wow.”“Youaregone on her,” Connor says curtly, fighting the urge to grit his teeth. “You’re head over heels for her.”You idiot,he tacks on in the privacy of his own mind.Maybe if he says it enough times, he can get through Tango’s thick-skulled, amnesiac head and get him back to the way he’ssupposedto be.Tango just frowns. “If you say so, man.”--Or, the one where Whiskey already has enough problems hiding his feelings for his best friend’s girl, he doesn’t need said best friend losing his memory on top of that.
Relationships: Denice "Foxtrot" Ford/Connor "Whiskey" Whisk, Denice "Foxtrot" Ford/Tony "Tango" Tangredi, Denice "Foxtrot" Ford/Tony "Tango" Tangredi/Connor "Whiskey" Whisk, Tony "Tango" Tangredi/Connor "Whiskey" Whisk
Comments: 14
Kudos: 125
Collections: Check Please Heartbreak Fest 2020





	those are pearls that were his eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bookwyrmling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookwyrmling/gifts).



> This fic was written for [Linnea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookwyrmling), expert purveyor of angst, for [Heartbreak Fest 2020](https://omgcpheartbreakfest.tumblr.com/). Linnea, thank you always for writing beautiful things that break my heart, I love you even as I curse your name. Thank you to the mods, my fellow participants, and my beta, G. And thank you, dear reader, for taking a chance on this story. <3
> 
> Title and epigraphs taken or adapted from _[The Tempest](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47418/song-full-fathom-five-thy-father-lies-/)_ and _[The Waste Land](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47311/the-waste-land/)_.
> 
> Disclaimer: Characters are not mine; all credit goes to [ngoziu](http://ngoziu.tumblr.com).
> 
> Content warnings: Car accidents, head injuries, comas, amnesia, mild internalized ableism, emotional infidelity, bucket-loads of angst, etc., etc. 
> 
> Buckle up, friends, we’re in for a ride.

* * *

**_those are pearls that were his eyes_ **

* * *

_Full fathom five thy lover lies;_   
_Of his bones are coral made;_   
**_Those are pearls that were his eyes:_ **   
_Nothing of him that doth fade,_   
_But doth suffer a sea-change_   
_Into something rich and strange._

—

—

—

_“What is that noise?”_   
_The wind under the door._   
_“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”_   
_Nothing again nothing._   
_“Do_   
_“You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember_   
_“Nothing?”_

_I remember_   
**_Those are pearls that were his eyes._ **   
_“Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”_

—

—

—

Tango surveys the collection of tiny cake slices set before him with a giddy kind of excitement, bouncing in his seat with barely suppressed energy.

“Oh, my god, these all look so good—Ford, look! Is that mango filling? I love mangoes, maybe we should get that one—oh, but there’s a raspberry one, too!” He turns to the amused-looking baker—is she a baker, though? There’s a fancy word for cake bakers, he thinks, Bitty taught him once but the name escapes him—and he explains, “Ford’s family _loves_ raspberry. There was this one pie her grandma made for last year’s Fourth of July, and everybody fought over it, I seriously thought I was gonna lose an arm in the stampede—oh, wait, Devin doesn’t like raspberry, though, does he? Maybe we should get something else instead—oh, how about that chocolate one?” Tango is so excited that he leans out of his seat in order to point out a cake slice in the far corner of the table. He looks over his shoulder at Ford. “Everybody loves chocolate, don’t they?”

“Not everybody, babe,” Ford says, a smile pulling at her mouth as she gently tugs him back into his seat. “But maybe we should actually try some of these cakes before we settle on one, huh?”

Tango sits back down with a sheepish grin and grabs for her hand, squeezing it apologetically. “Yeah, yeah, of course, of course—sorry, got a little carried away there.” He points his smile at the cake baker, too, who just nods and directs their attention to the samples closest to them, encouraging them to get down to business.

And Tango—Tango _tries,_ okay, he tries to reel it in and get through this calmly and professionally and not at all in a manner like a ten-year-old set loose in a candy shop, but it’s _hard._ He and Ford are trying out wedding cake flavors! For their wedding! Their real, actual, happening-in-five-months wedding!

He leans his chin against his hand and sighs happily as Ford discusses design ideas with their cake baker, interjecting every few minutes—okay, fine, more like every few seconds—with a question, mostly about the flavors, but occasionally about the cake making process itself.

Melissa the cake baker asks questions of her own, also mostly about their preferred cake, but also about their wedding in general. Tango is more than happy to answer, telling her about the venue, the decorations, etc., etc.

“So how long have you two been together?” she asks.

Tango beams. “Five years! We’ve known each other way longer, though,” he says, nudging Ford’s shoulder companionably. “Ten years this past October.”

“We met in college,” Ford explains. “The two of us went to Samwell University.”

“Oh, the one in Boston?” Melissa says, her interest perked. “Some of my former clients were alum, too.”

Tango laughs. “We know! Friends of ours recommended you—Grace and Tania, you made their cake just last year.”

“Oh, I remember them—lovely couple, went for a key lime cake, if I recall correctly.” Melissa rotates the plates, trading nibbled-on slices for fresh ones. “They met in theatre classes, didn’t they? Was it the same for you two?”

“Nope—I was the theatre geek, but Tango here majored in linguistics and played for the men’s hockey team.” Ford takes a bite out of the offered slice—labeled bananas foster, Tango notes—and nods approvingly, which Tango also notes. It’s probably going to be either this or the lemon raspberry, he’s pretty sure. “We met because I was team manager.”

“That’s adorable,” Melissa pronounces. “Was it love at first sight?” She winks at them, teasing.

Tango and Ford exchange a look and burst into laughter.

“No,” Ford explains after they get themselves back under control. “No, it really, really wasn’t.”

Tango links their hands back together. “But it’s fine,” he says, smiling wide. “It’s gonna be love at last sight, so we’re good.”

They get back to the cake tasting. Ford eventually picks the lemon raspberry and a simple, elegant starting design, and the two of them sign the contract and pay the deposit, making plans to discuss further details later.

“Called it,” Tango says smugly as he helps her into her coat, and Ford laughs up at him, loud and warm in the windswept chill of a California November evening.

 _I’m gonna love you for the rest of my life,_ he thinks, feeling nothing but happy.

—

“We should invite Whiskey for dinner this week,” Ford calls from the restroom, a song from _Hadestown_ playing low in the background as she gets ready for bed.

“Again?” Tango says, surprised.

“Why not?” She shrugs, the movement pulling at the soft fabric of her t-shirt so it strains slightly across her breasts.

Tango blinks, a little distracted, before shaking his head to clear it. “Well, we just had him over last week,” he points out, leaning back on his hands as he sprawls further against the bed.

The corner of Ford’s mouth ticks up in his favorite smile as she turns to face him, toothbrush still in hand, hair already wrapped. “And? Does that mean we can’t have him over this week, too?”

Tango considers it. “Won’t he get sick of us?”

Ford wrinkles her nose at him in mock-disapproval. “He could get sick of _you,_ maybe. Not of me, though—I’m _way_ too interesting for _that.”_

And, okay. That’s, like, really hard to argue against, because even if she’s joking, it’s true. Anybody who’d get sick of Ford is an idiot, and Whiskey’s a lot of things, but an idiot isn’t one of them. “Okay,” Tango acquiesces, “I’ll let him know.”

“Good,” Ford says, pleased.

She slides onto his lap a few minutes later, his hands finding the sweet curve of her hips, her fingers tracing over the sensitive curve of his ear, and—well. They leave the lights on for a while after that.

—

They settle for dinner on Wednesday.

Whiskey brings wine, _again,_ even though Tango’s already told him that he doesn’t have to do that, it’s not like he’s a guest.

Ford placates him with a kiss on his cheek and takes the wine from Whiskey anyway, examining the label with a discerning eye. “I haven’t heard of this vineyard—is it any good?” she asks Whiskey.

Whiskey shrugs. “Dunno. Haven’t tried it yet. The sommelier said it was excellent, though.”

Tango brightens. “Oh, the cute one? I liked him, have you asked him out yet?”

Whiskey glares at him while Ford snorts in the background, which is answer enough. Shame about that; there’s, like, a 99% chance the sommelier’s into him (honestly, who wouldn’t be?) and Tango wasn’t lying when he said he was cute.

Oh, well. Ford thinks Whiskey will date again when he’s ready, but Tango suspects he’s just being a weenie about it.

Which he says at dinner later, loudly and pointedly, after he’s had a couple glasses of the wine, which was indeed excellent.

Whiskey calmly balls up his napkin and throws it at his head while he’s mid-sentence. Tango, unfortunately inebriated, can’t dodge in time and ends up with a face-full of fabric, awkwardly flailing. Ford leans against his side and shrieks with laughter while Whiskey smirks at him, and Tango’s annoyance dies a sudden death due to the affection rising within him.

It doesn’t stop him from complaining, though. It’s the principle of the thing.

—

Wednesday dinners with Whiskey become a Thing™.

“All according to plan,” Ford says, rubbing her hands together, deviously pleased.

Tango leans over and kisses the grin off her face. Seriously, how is he supposed to resist when she’s channeling her inner villain?

Ford puts her hand to the nape of his neck and pulls him closer, and Tango’s heartbeat is nothing but the staccato rhythm of _love you, love you, love you_.

—

Tango proposed on May the 4th, because Ford is a die-hard Star Wars fan who managed to convert him, and Tango is possibly fonder of puns than is good for any one person.

He’d had a huge speech planned, written down and meticulously practiced and precisely memorized, but when the moment finally came, there he was on one knee in the grass of the mini-golf course, looking at the love of his life and gaping at her like a landed trout.

She stared down at him. He looked up at her.

“Uh, would you, like, wanna marry me?” he blurted out, then winced. “Wait, no, I mean—”

“Yes,” she said, interrupting him with a beaming smile. Then, “Not to be a materialistic ho, though, but do you have a ring for me?”

“I left it in my jacket in the car!” he wailed, flinging himself forward and clutching her knees. “Babe, please take that back, I really need a do-over!”

She just laughed at him, and that was that.

—

Whiskey couldn’t stop laughing at him either when they told him the story over the phone.

“Stop,” Tango begs.

“Tangredi, what the fuck,” Whiskey answers, still snorting.

“If you keep laughing, I won’t let you be my best man,” Tango threatens.

“Don’t worry,” Ford says, giggling where she’s pressed up against his side, “you can be mine instead.”

“Sounds good,” Whiskey says, amused, and he’s lucky he’s not here in person, or Tango would have to hit him for that. He’s supposed to be on _his_ side. Not fair!

They eventually decide that Tango can have him for best man, but he has to show up for Ford’s bachelorette party, too, which, duh, he was gonna have to do that anyway. How else will Tango get drunken karaoke photos? Like, what else was a best man for, honestly?

—

Ford is definitely up to something when it comes to Whiskey, but Tango’s not sure what.

They’ve both been worried for him, ever since a bad knee injury took him out of the NHL last April, ending a five-year, Stanley Cup-winning career with the Schooners. Whiskey’s achieved more than most when it comes to men’s hockey, but Tango knows he wanted to play longer, strive harder, give everything he had and more.

Worse than the pain of his injury was the pain of losing that dream, and it took a long time for Whiskey to come to terms with that, while Tango stood helpless on the sidelines, unable to do anything but watch him, and wait for him, and hope for the best.

He’s been getting better, though, mentally _and_ physically, and Tango doesn’t think it’s boasting to say a large chunk of it is thanks to him and Ford helping out now, especially after they convinced him to move down here to San Diego, instead of back home to Arizona like he originally planned.

“You hate Phoenix,” Ford had pointed out, the phone cupped to her ear.

“We have the beach,” she’d argued.

“It’s only a few hours away from Arizona,” she’d cajoled. “You’d still be close to your folks.”

“We miss you,” she’d said, devastatingly honest, in a quiet voice Tango wasn’t entirely sure she meant for anyone but Whiskey to hear. “We _miss_ you.”

 _Come back,_ Tango thought, staring at the line of Ford’s shoulders as he willed Whiskey to understand, a thousand miles away.

Whiskey sighed. Then, after a long, heavy pause, “Okay.”

Tango let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.

—

That was months ago, back in spring. It’s winter now.

“2026, here we come,” Tango says with a smile.

Whiskey clinks their glasses together and smiles back, a quiet, crooked thing.

Tango folds the memory up and tucks it neatly into his heart.

—

December’s busy for all three of them, especially Tango and Ford. Between their jobs, the wedding plans, and Christmas festivities with all six gajillion members of Ford’s extended family, Tango feels a lot like a hamster in a wheel, running like crazy and not actually getting anywhere.

“Dude, Stuart is petitioning for me to be this year’s designated Santa, I genuinely don’t know if I’m gonna make it out alive,” Tango tells Whiskey over lunch one day.

Whiskey frowns faintly, quizzical. “Which one’s Stuart again?”

“One of Ford’s cousins on her dad’s side,” Tango says, not missing a beat. “He’s usually Santa but he says now that I’m ‘officially’ part of the family, we should take advantage of the fact that we can have a white Santa for the pictures, make it look ‘professional.’” Tango shudders.

Whiskey crosses his arms and leans back, amused. “Wasn’t the original St. Nicholas not white? I’m pretty sure Nursey had a rant about this.”

Tango waves his arms. “Right? Right? Stuart’s just throwing me under the bus because the costume is itchy! I refuse to do it!”

“Sure, Tango,” Whiskey says, agreeable, and Tango narrows his eyes at him.

“I’m serious!”

“Of course, Tango.”

“Really!”

—

Of course, all his protests come to nothing, and Tango is indeed the designated Santa for the Ford Family Christmas Extravaganza!!!™ (Look, he’s been coming to these things for six years now, ever since he moved here and Ford found out he didn’t have anywhere to go for the holidays and dragged him home with her, so believe him when he says the exclamations are necessary.)

“Looking good, white boy,” Deandre says, smirking at him over a cup of Great-Aunt Lila’s _definitely_ spiked eggnog. He’s got his phone in his other hand, and Tango scowls.

“Deandre Thomas Ford, if you even think about taking a picture of me in this suit, future brother-in-law or not, I will have to murder you,” he says, dead serious.

“Uh, the point _is_ to take pictures, though?” one of Ford’s cousins says as she passes by, clutching a steaming-hot casserole with mismatched oven-mitts.

“Chloe, none of the kids are even around right now,” Tango whines.

“It’s only a matter of time,” Stuart says, laying a companionable arm over his shoulder and then adjusting the fake beard so Tango almost chokes on it. “Also, what did I tell you? You look awesome, Tony, just like a bona fide mall Santa! This was a brilliant idea.”

“Oh, totally,” Devin contributes, exchanging fist bumps with Deandre as he joins in, taking pictures of his own. Tango tries to grab for his phone, but he just holds it up over his head, which is deeply unfair considering that he’s five years younger than Tango and therefore should be permanently shorter. Alas, all the tall genes skipped Ford and went straight to both her younger brothers, a fact that Ford has always bemoaned.

Thankfully, all three of the D’s are equally ticklish, so Tango goes for Devin’s sides and successfully get him to drop the phone.

However, Ford picks it up before either of them can grab it. “Aww, this is adorable,” she says, swiping through the photos.

Tango gasps in outrage. “Et tu, Ford?”

She shrugs. “What can I say? I like my man in a beard.” She pulls him down for a kiss, and they ignore her brothers and cousin gagging in the background.

“Mistletoe, suckers,” she says after, pointing up at the ceiling smugly.

“Why is everyone in this family so gross?” Deandre complains, and the room erupts as he’s immediately shouted down by everyone in hearing distance, and a few folks who aren’t, but figure he needs to be yelled at anyway.

Tango drapes his arms around Ford and eagerly joins in.

—

Okay, so the pictures _do_ turn out cute, and horsing around with the kids _was_ pretty fun, but Tango would like to point out that last year’s photos with Stuart were _equally_ cute, so somebody else should do it next year—how about you, Jake?

“Oh, no way,” Jake laughs. “Who’s ever heard of a Filipino Santa?”

“We are an equal opportunity family,” Mylene replies solemnly and a little too precisely to be completely sober; Tango knows her tells by now. “Santas of all races are loved and appreciated by the Fords and their friends.”

Ford and the rest of her nearby cousins snort. The affectionate nickname for their particular generation is the ‘Diversity Initiative,’ a nod to the fact that a good chunk of them have non-African-American significant others. There’s Tango, of course, who’s the sole token white, and Jake, the afore-mentioned Filipino, and Leila, who happens to be Pakistani, and Susan and Luis, who are both Mexican, and finally there’s David, who’s a quarter-Japanese, a quarter-Brazilian, and half-Afro-Cuban, so according to him he gets to join the club, even if he _is_ Black. Nobody argues because David is a literal ray of sunshine and the undisputed favorite of all the older Fords, partially because he’s so handsome and charming, partially because he’s married to Patrice (who everybody knows is going to be the next Ford matriarch). But really it’s mostly because he’s Keisha’s dad, and apparently being the parent of the eldest of the next generation of Fords cements one’s place in the hierarchy.

Tango’s not entirely sure how this works—he’s the only child of a single mom and a disappeared dad, so he didn’t have any cousins and aunts and uncles and great-aunts and great-uncles when he was growing up; their family hierarchy basically meant his mom was in charge and he did what she said, and that seemed like a pretty cool deal to him. Ford’s family is a lot more complicated, and even though everyone _jokes_ about the hierarchy, it’s still kind of actually serious? Like, Ford’s grandma and all the great-aunts got together and banned Ford’s second cousin Luke from any gatherings because he was a homophobic dick when Marcus brought Luis home for the first time, which was great of them. But also, Aunt Helen and Aunt Felicia stopped talking to each other for two years because Felicia told somebody from church that Helen bought the cake she brought to the neighborhood potluck? So sometimes the feuds make zero sense.

It’s weird, but as long as he asks strategic questions, it’s easy enough to keep up.

(“Just call it gossip, Tangredi,” Whiskey tells him when he explains this, but it’s _not_ gossip, it’s _strategic questioning_ and _essential information gathering_ , thank you very much.)

Anyway, Tango and the rest of the Diversity Initiative are set for life, since David is their designated spokesperson and, again, all of the older Fords _adore_ him. Tango makes sure to show his gratitude regularly, which Jake thinks is hilarious, because he’s convinced Tango is _also_ adored by the older Fords. And, yeah, okay, both of Ford’s parents and Grandma Mimi think he’s pretty great, but Ford’s Pop-Pop took three years to decide he was good enough for his baby girl, so Tango is perfectly justified in thinking that his position is precarious, okay?

Also, Jake wasn’t present five years ago when Whiskey came for the 4th of July, and is thus unaware that Ford’s entire family took one look at him and immediately advised Ford to date him, which was of course how they found out that she’d recently started dating Tango instead.

“Girl, why?” Angelica had asked her, out of sight but not out of hearing range. Tango’s stomach had twisted and he’d walked away, too much of a coward to find out Ford’s answer.

He wouldn’t walk away now, of course—Ford’s family is _his_ family. He’s been adopted and accepted, enveloped in their boundless love and affection, embedded into their feuds and inside jokes and family stories, promoted from that lonely twenty-two-year-old with nowhere to go to a trusted brother, cousin, uncle, nephew, son—the man they trusted with Denice’s heart.

He wouldn’t trade them for the world—even if Stuart _is_ running a campaign to make him the permanent designated Santa.

—

The day after Christmas is the mass exodus, with everybody heading back to their respective homes, and the leave-taking process ends up being every bit as hectic as the Extravaganza!!!™ itself. Luggage is hauled, leftovers are divided and distributed, children and spouses and pets are tallied up and accounted for, and everyone hugs everyone else goodbye at _least_ three times.

“You tell your mama I’m sending her cookies in the mail,” Grandma Mimi tells Tango.

“I will,” Tango says obediently.

“And you make sure my Denice eats right! She’s looking too skinny.” Granny tuts disapprovingly. “She needs a little more meat on her bones if she wants to have a baby soon.”

“Granny!” Ford protests.

Granny rolls her eyes, formidable even standing at slightly less than five feet tall. “What? You’re getting married already, and I want great-grandchildren!”

“You _have_ great-grandchildren,” Ford points out.

“Well, I want more of them,” Granny says, unrepentant.

Tango laughs and promises they’ll do their best to deliver, Ford stopping mid-complaint to look up at him with shining eyes.

—

“Babies, huh,” she says once they’re back home and curled up in bed.

Tango chuckles and grabs the hand she was trailing up his chest, kisses her fingertips lovingly. “Don’t think I didn’t see you monopolizing Keisha. Poor Patrice barely got to hold her.”

Ford makes a face at him. “I’m her godmother, it’s my _job_ to monopolize her.”

“Uh-huh. So does that mean you don’t want one of your own?”

“Excuse you, mister, I don’t want just _one,_ which you damn well know,” Ford huffs, but the smile on her face gives her away.

“Right,” he says, toying with her bra strap, the bright green of it gleaming against her rich brown skin. He raises a brow in a move that he _knows_ turns her on: “So are we gonna get started on that baby-making practice, or what? Considering that we’re aiming for several, we should probably—”

Ford leans forward and shuts him up with her mouth; he can live with that.

—

He and Ford are the proud co-owners of a house in Mira Mesa, though arguably the bank owns more of it than they do at the moment. There isn’t a white picket fence, and they don’t have a dog yet, and, despite all their talk, they’re not having kids until after they’re married, either—Ford refuses to be uncertain about her dress size in the lead-up to the wedding—but still. It’s the whole nine-yards, so close they can taste it; it’s everything Ford dreamed about growing up, and for the past five years, all Tango’s wanted is to be the one to share that dream with her: house, spouse, and baby in the basket.

Ford wants three kids, same as her parents—the perfect balance, she calls it. Eldest, middle, and youngest, and with three kids, at least _one_ of them is bound to turn out okay, right?

Tango used to think he’d have just one kid, if he’d have any at all, in the unlikely event he managed to find somebody who’d put up with him for the rest of his life. His mom did a great job raising him by herself, but he never wanted to put anybody through that, so he decided early on that he wouldn’t have kids unless he was 100% sure his spouse wouldn’t leave them. It’s the usual cliché—son of deadbeat dad has commitment issues—but he’d been determined to stick to his guns.

Then he fell in love with Ford.

Hell would freeze over before she stopped loving him, he knows that in his bones. She wouldn’t ever leave him, or their kid. She talks all day long about how she wants their baby to have his nose, his chin, the shape of his eyes, his sense of humor, his dorky laugh—

Tango doesn’t have preferences. If it’s Ford’s baby, he knows he’ll love them no matter what.

—

Deandre posts pictures of him in the Santa suit on Instagram, and has the temerity to _tag_ him.

Whiskey prints one of them out and places it on his _refrigerator_.

“You are dead to me,” Tango hisses when he sees it.

Ford just snaps a photo and sends it to the groupchat.

—

January onward feels like a mad dash towards the wedding: flowers, music, catering, photography, venue after venue after venue.

“At least the church is good to go,” Tango tells Whiskey.

Whiskey tilts his head, flipping through one of the many, many brochures the florists sent over. “It’s the one Ford’s parents got married in, right?”

Tango brightens. “Yup! Their love story is super-duper adorable,” he says, then proceeds to launch into the whole tale.

Whiskey’s mouth ticks up halfway through it. “It’s cute how excited you get over stuff like this,” he declares.

“I’m not cute, I’m a _romantic,”_ Tango corrects after a beat, ignoring the way his face heats a little due to the compliment.

“Whatever you say, Tango.” Whiskey shakes his head. “Love at first sight, though? Really?”

“Yes, really.” Tango rolls his eyes. “Of course they fell deeper in love later, but we’re talking about that first spark, Whiskey, that—that moment where you meet their eyes and you just _know_ that they’re the one.”

“If you say so,” Whiskey says, still doubtful and ever the cynic. Tango feels sorry for him, he really, really does.

“I do say so,” Tango insists. “It happened to me, too.”

The words slip out of his mouth and he freezes in his chair, icy fear pounding through him.

“Oh, of course it did,” Whiskey scoffs. “I should’ve guessed that’s how it went down with Ford.” He smirks, not even noticing Tango’s discomfort, and after a moment, Tango relaxes and forces himself to chuckle.

“Yeah,” he repeats inanely for lack of something better to say. “That’s how it went down.”

—

Fun fact: that is _not_ how it went down with Ford.

Tango took one look at Ford and thought, “Isn’t she in my public health seminar?” though what came out of his mouth was actually, “Wow, is it, like, a requirement for the SMH manager to be really tiny?”

Not his best moment, honestly, and also not love at first sight.

No, for him, love at first sight was Whiskey, not Ford.

—

It went like this:

Tango was eighteen years old, walking into the locker room at Faber. He’d played hockey since he was ten, so there have been a lot of locker rooms in his life, but this particular locker room had a specific boy in it: dark hair, tanned skin, bedroom eyes, and, worst of all, gorgeous, gorgeous hands.

Whiskey didn’t even say anything at that first meeting, just waved and continued taping up his stick.

Anthony Tangredi took one look at those hands and fell right into love, hook, line, and sinker.

—

Another fun fact: Ford wasn’t love at first sight, no, but he _did_ like her a lot. Like, a _lot,_ a lot. Like, ‘wow, you’re super cool, I want you to think I’m cool, too, and I hope you decide to be my friend,’ kind of a lot. And she did! It was great.

And even better, it turned out that there were a lot of reasons for Tango and Ford to _stay_ friends once they became friends, like their shared love of _The Princess Bride,_ their unironic enjoyment of sports anime, and their devotion to ’90s rom-coms, but even before they discovered all that, the reason they started getting closer in the first place was because they happened to catch each other checking out Whiskey’s ass the day they met.

So, yeah. How to make a best friend, Ford-and-Tangredi-style: bond over their mutual crush on one Connor Whisk.

“Why is he so _hot?”_ they would chorus, and then they’d drool over Whiskey’s thirst-trap Insta pics together.

It was a pure and uncomplicated friendship, especially because Whiskey dated his high school sweetheart for three-point-five of their four years at Samwell, so neither of them had a snowball’s chance in hell.

—

Then Whiskey broke up with his girlfriend spring semester of senior year, and signed with the Schooners soon after.

All of a sudden, they had a chance.

Tango didn’t take it.

—

See, the thing is—the thing is, Ford may have had a crush on Whiskey, but Tango was stupidly head-over-heels for him, no turning back, no end in sight.

It’s not that Ford’s feelings meant any less, but that she’s always been better at controlling them than Tango is. She thinks ahead, weighs the pros and cons, and knows when to cut her losses. She’s cautious and careful, even when she loves, _especially_ when she loves, and Tango knows that’s because the world has taught her that just because you love someone is no guarantee that you can trust them.

Ford looked Whiskey up and down, and measured his commitment to the NHL, examined his devotion to a sport whose fanbase came hand in hand with toxic masculinity and a good dose of old-fashioned racism, and she quietly closed the door on any feelings deeper than infatuation. Ford dreamed of a house and a spouse and brown-skinned babies, and the NHL was no place to raise them, especially not with a husband gone three-quarters of the year.

Tango had never had to do such calculations until he came to Samwell, and was still new and unpracticed when it came to judging things like this. At almost twenty-two, he was a little reckless with his own safety, trusting in the privileges he’d always enjoyed to protect him from the prejudices that _did_ apply to him.

He thought, _I love him._

He thought, _I want to be with him._

He thought, _I don’t mind hiding until he retires._

It was Ford who took him by the hands and said, _Honey, you’re not made for hiding. They’re gonna find out. You’re gonna have to be prepared for what happens after that._

And maybe if he’d just been thinking about himself, he still would have risked it. He still would have tried. But Whiskey was always so quiet, so private, so self-contained. He hated the spotlight, hated it when people pried into his personal life, into the things he wanted to keep to himself—

And Tango knew—if he loved Whiskey, really loved him, then he wouldn’t say anything. He’d keep it to himself. He wouldn’t ask him to choose between his own dream and Tango’s desires.

So, yeah. Tango had a shot, and he didn’t take it.

—

In contrast, if Whiskey were love at first sight, then Ford crept up on him. Ford was years of inside jokes and midnight texts and taking turns to pay for the popcorn. Ford was borrowing books and sharing Netflix passwords and telling someone for the first time ever that a part of him still wants his dad to come back. Ford was five years of saying, “Stay safe, see you later, love you,” and _meaning_ it, long before she was ever, “I’m in love with you, I want to be with you, marry me.”

He doesn’t know the moment he fell in love with her—he can’t offer it to her like a gift, a perfectly framed memory. There isn’t a single instance that he can point to to say, “This is when it changed for me.”

He just knows that, somewhere amongst a thousand utterly mundane moments, it did.

—

Their upcoming wedding date is April 25th because Tango inherited his mom’s love of Sandra Bullock, and _Miss Congeniality_ is his favorite of her movies.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Dex asks on a group call, genuinely confused.

“Oh, my god,” Bitty and Holster say at the same time, outraged.

“You’ve never seen Miss Congeniality?” Bitty asks as Holster just yells incoherently. “How? I _know_ it was one of Holster’s recurring movie picks.”

“Dex never came to Holster’s movie nights after Sleepless in Seattle,” Chowder explains.

“She was stalking him!” Dex says. “Stalking is _not_ romantic!”

Lardo is snickering, while in the background, Ransom tries to calm Holster down. “This is 2015 all over again,” she says fondly.

“I know, right?” Whiskey says, half-exasperated, half-amused.

“Anyway, could someone explain to me what April 25th has to do with Miss America?” Dex asks.

“Miss Congeniality,” Tango and three other people correct.

“Whatever!” Dex shouts.

“Mr. Tangredi,” Ford interjects, “describe your perfect date.”

Right on cue, Tango pronounces, “That’s a tough one. I’d have to say April 25th, because it’s not too hot, not too cold. All you need is a light jacket!”

“What,” Dex says, flat. “That doesn’t make any sense. You live in California, no one ever needs light jackets there.”

“Oh, my god!” Holster cries.

It’s okay; Ford’s the only one who needs to understand.

—

In February, Ford says, “Fuck it, let’s just elope.”

Tango winces. “Your Pop-Pop would kill me,” he points out.

“I’m not sure I care right now, babe,” she says, stone-faced.

She’s been staring at the seating arrangements for the reception for close to three hours now. They’re going to have a little less than two hundred guests; only forty of those guests are Tango’s, consisting of his mom, her boyfriend, her two best friends who basically helped raise him, four of his high school friends, a few Samwell buddies, the coworkers he likes, and his cosplay group. Another fifty are his and Ford’s mutual friends and their plus-ones, including the SMH 2015-2019 crew.

The last hundred and a bit were Ford’s family and friends and family friends, and needless to say, the complicated web of who was talking to whom was giving her a bit of a headache at the moment.

“Do you want me to call David?” Tango offers. “I’m pretty sure he knows if Angelica’s folks are still ignoring Uncle Tim.”

“I’m pretty sure we could save ourselves thousands of dollars and hours of work if we just drove to Vegas right now,” Ford counters.

“Um, that’s definitely true,” Tango says. “But Vegas won’t have a five-tier lemon raspberry cake made to your specifications. Also, again, your Pop-Pop would kill me.”

“We could bring Whiskey,” Ford says, laying her head on the coffee table.

Tango hesitates. “As our witness?”

“No, as our designated third in the debauched drunken orgy everybody’s supposed to have after a Vegas wedding.”

A beat of silence.

Then, Ford says, “Okay, that was supposed to be a joke, but that was a really hot image, wasn’t it?”

Tango clears his throat. “Hmm.”

Ford raises a thick, dark brow, her brown eyes glinting with mischief. “Hmm?”

“Well. I want to say yes, but if I do, I feel like the chances of this Vegas wedding actually happening will go up, and then your Pop-Pop really would kill first me, and then Whiskey, and then where would you be? Oh, wait, you could help him hide our bodies in the desert, and then he’d get away scot-free—”

Ford laughs. After, she lets him call David, and they get the seating arrangements sorted out, and the Vegas elopement is put to rest, thank goodness.

(The idea of running away with Whiskey lingers, though, and Tango wonders if it’s part of the plan Ford’s putting together.

Oh, well. He’s sure it’ll be a good one once she tells him about it.)

—

On the Ides of March, 2026, Tango’s driving on the I-15, heading home after a long day at work. There’s a Nicki Minaj song he likes playing on the radio, and one of the lines reminds him that they need to call to ask the caterer about something, so he calls Ford to remind her to remind him.

“Hey, babe,” he says, on speakerphone, having been sent to her voicemail—she’s probably on Do Not Disturb while she’s cooking dinner, “remind me later that we need to call the caterer about the vegan options. Deandre told me his girlfriend is trying it out—”

After that, there’s nothing but the sound of brakes screeching and metal crunching.

—

Technically, these are the last words Ford’s fiancé will ever say to her. Technically, after this, Ford won’t have a fiancé anymore.

Technically.

—

—

—

Connor has a problem, and the problem is this:

He’s in love with his best friend’s girl.

There. He admitted it. Obviously, he is now free to bury this problem and forget it ever existed, because that’s how things work, right? Right?

Right.

—

Getting told he’ll never be allowed to play on NHL ice ever again is probably the worst day of his life so far, and that includes the day Ingrid told him she’d found somebody else, and they should probably break up.

Probably. Like it was even a question.

Well. Considering the things he got up to at Samwell, it probably _was_ a question, but in his defense, kissing other people and then telling each other about it while they had Skype sex wasn’t the same thing as saying, ‘I’m in love with someone else, and I’m not in love with you anymore.’

For Connor, the second part was the part he couldn’t handle.

The entire process of retiring from the NHL was like that, was getting told over and over again that something he loved didn’t love him back anymore.

If it weren’t for Tango and Ford, he probably wouldn’t have survived it, he thinks. Or, well.

He wouldn’t have survived it and still have been recognizably _himself._

—

Connor, if forced to pick a label for himself, would probably pick bisexual.

He used to think of himself as straight with the occasional lapse, but listening to Nursey and Lardo talk while high about the sociopolitical implications of gender and sexuality broadens a guy’s horizons, so.

If he _had_ to pick a label, it’d be bisexual.

If.

—

Ingrid had liked hearing about him kissing guys more than him kissing other girls, a preference that narrowed his options by quite a bit, considering that the majority of people he was okay with kissing _were_ girls.

The other thing that narrowed his options was the fact that he occasionally liked to talk about Ingrid.

“God, I don’t want to hear about your beard right after you stuck your tongue down my throat,” one of his first attempts, a guy from his lit class, had said.

Connor frowned. “She’s not my beard, she’s my girlfriend.”

The guy snorted. “Oh, great, you’re one of _those._ Should have guessed—you poor, repressed hockey boys.”

Connor didn’t get it.

He mostly stuck to his LAX friends after that; they didn’t ask questions, they didn’t expect him to be their boyfriend, and, best of all, they didn’t think he was weird or in denial when he complained about how much he missed his girlfriend, and that long-distance sucked.

“Totally,” Chad said. “I mean, my boyfriend is doing a semester abroad in fucking Italy. Stupid time differences.”

They’d bumped fists in solidarity and then made out again, and then Connor walked back to his dorms and called Ingrid.

—

Sometimes he thought about kissing Tango—they were friends, and he knew how Connor felt about Ingrid, and Ingrid had liked Tango when she’d met him, and he was pretty sure Tango liked guys.

(Actually...back then, he’d been pretty sure Tango was gay.)

A couple of reasons he never went through with it, initially:  
  


  1. Kissing teammates was just a dumb move, any way he looked at it.
  2. Tango couldn’t keep a secret to save his life, so the entire team would know everything about anything that happened.
  3. Tango wasn’t made for casual, no-strings-attached types of things, so actually he’d probably turn him down and then feel bad about doing so for weeks.



It was just better not to go there, and then later, when Tango had become Connor’s best friend, he was too important to risk hurting.

And then, even later than that, it became clear to Connor that _Ford_ was in love with Tango.

He really couldn’t have tried anything then, not after knowing what it would do to her, even if he thought her love was hopeless.

(Newsflash: it wasn’t hopeless.)

—

Connor never let himself think about kissing Ford.

He never let himself think about why he didn’t, either, at least not until after Ingrid left him.

The reasons were a little obvious then, Ingrid’s sudden absence providing the context he needed to understand the way his eyes tracked the movement of Ford’s hands, the way her voice always managed to catch his ear, how her smile didn’t stop him in his tracks, but _did_ manage to slow his steps, just so he could look at it a little longer. Abruptly, he understood why he memorized her favorite foods, why he liked listening to her talk about musicals he’d never bother to watch, why it was so important to carve out time in his day for her.

 _Oh,_ he thought, a little dumb-founded, _I could let myself love her._ That’s _why I couldn’t think about kissing her._

—

And yet, despite never letting himself think about it, she’s the only member of the SMH crew that he _has_ kissed.

It goes like this:

It’s senior year. They're twenty-two, or close enough, in his case. They both have thesis papers to write. Their notes are scattered all over the floor of his room at the Haus, and instead of adding to them, they’re passing a handle of tequila back and forth.

“I’m over her,” Connor declares.

Ford snorts, fanning herself with one hand. “Yeah, right.”

“I _am,”_ Connor insists.

“Oh, sure.”

He frowns. “You’re making fun of me.”

“’M not.”

“You _are.”_

“Nope!”

“I’m not in love with her anymore!”

“Riiiiiiiiight.”

“Oh, for—you don’t even have any room to talk! You’re in love with Tango!”

Ford’s mouth drops open. “What!”

Connor squints vindictively. “You heard me.”

“I’m not in love with him,” Ford says, barely even slurring. Connor’s impressed, considering that she went cross-eyed trying to take off her glasses not two minutes ago.

It’s his turn to snort. “Sure you aren’t.”

‘’M not!”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’ll prove it to you!”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah!”

Connor really doesn’t know how grabbing his face and kissing him proves that she’s not in love with Tango, especially because he’s kissed plenty of other people while being in love with Ingrid, but that’s what Ford goes with.

They don’t do much more than that, trading close-mouthed kisses instead of sips of alcohol while they’re curled up in his bed, and then they fall asleep, limbs still intertwined, something that they’ve done often enough that it can be construed as platonic, if not for the lingering taste of her lip balm at the corner of his mouth.

Still, Ford doesn’t remember anything in the morning, so Connor does his best to forget.

—

A little more than a year later, during Connor’s first season with the Schooners, Tango calls to let him know that he’s dating Ford. He sounds ecstatic, so Connor forces a smile into his voice and says congratulations, like he’s supposed to, instead of saying, _I didn’t even know you liked girls that way,_ or, _Do you even love her like I do?_ or, _Why do_ you _get to be the one to have her?_

That last question is especially stupid, considering everything Connor knows about Ford’s opinions of the NHL, which basically boil down to ‘even more racist than the NFL’ and ‘somehow only slightly better about concussions.’ She likes _hockey_ fine, and she cares about the hockey players she knows, including Connor, but she’s not the type of person who’ll be content being the understudy to a goddamn sports league, and he’s not the type of person who’s selfish enough to ask her to be.

(There’s several reasons he decided not to have kids until he’s out of the Show, and at least _he’s_ white-passing.)

—

That summer, Ford and Tango ask him to come down and visit them.

Part of him wants to say no, part of him tells him to stop being stupid and go and see his best friends. That latter part wins, so he ends up spending his 4th of July explaining to Ford’s extended family that, no, he isn’t her boyfriend, that happens to be Tango.

Which is apparently news to them, so apparently Tango _can_ keep a secret if he wants to. Go figure.

Overall, the visit starts a tradition he didn’t intend, but one that he’s grateful for nevertheless:

A few weeks out of every summer, he carves out just for them.

—

After his knee gave out, Connor thought he’d stay in Seattle. After it became clear that staying in Seattle was detrimental to his recovery, he thought he’d move back to Arizona.

It’s Ford who convinces him to join them in San Diego.

He tries not to think about why it feels so much like coming home.

—

Connor moves to California in April of 2025.

Tango proposes to Ford in May. Connor agrees to be his best man the very next day.

By December, Connor’s a weekly fixture at their house, showing up on their doorstep every Wednesday evening like clockwork. Tango beams and Ford grins like the cat that got the cream each time they see him.

—

His therapist asks him to come up with a list of things he enjoys about retirement. It doesn’t have to be long, but he needs to be honest about every item.

The list he eventually comes up with is this:  
  


  1. He has a boatload of money.
  2. He now also has the time to enjoy spending it.
  3. Barely anybody recognizes him in this city, so he can do what he wants without worrying about how it reflects on ~~his team~~ anybody else.
  4. He can even date guys if he wants to.
  5. He doesn’t have to date anybody if he doesn’t want to, and the only person who pesters him about it is Tango.
  6. He doesn’t have to do pressers.
  7. He never has to set foot in Buffalo ever again.
  8. He sees Ford and Tango every week.



  
Any way he looks at it, life is looking pretty good for him.

—

And then Tango gets into a car accident a month and a half before the wedding.

He goes into a coma; he doesn’t wake up until June.

When he does wake up, nothing is the same.

—

—

—

Denice is busy chopping onions and singing along at the top of her lungs to “Don’t Lose Ur Head” when Tango calls her. Her phone is face-down. She doesn’t hear a thing.

It’s not until she’s done cooking and he _still_ isn’t home that she checks her phone.

“If he forgot to tell me that he’s getting dinner with the guys, I’m gonna murder him,” she mutters, punching in her passcode. She has two voice-mails, one from Tango, one from an unknown number. The latter is more recent, and she plays it first, expecting to hear a telemarketer, or maybe a wrong number—those are always hilarious—and she’s smiling a little, already looking forward to sharing the story with Tango.

But it’s not a wrong number.

“Ms. Ford? I’m sorry to trouble you, but there’s been an accident—”

The phone falls from her hand. She doesn’t really remember much after that.

—

Denice has too many relatives in the medical field to be uncomfortable in hospitals, and sitting in the waiting room allows her to calm down a bit. Tango’s in surgery, but he’s expected to come out of it alive; recovery might take a while, but that’s fine, it’s alright, he’s alive and he’s going to stay that way.

Everything’s going to be fine.

She politely asks the nurse relevant questions, signs off on medical forms, and hands over the insurance cards. She calls Tango’s mom, and then her mom, and then Tango’s supervisor, and then her boss. She sends a text to several groupchats. She lets everybody who needs to know what the situation is. She tells people that she’s fine, she’s got it covered, nobody needs to come to the hospital until the next day—it’s so late, after all, and it’s a Sunday night. Everybody’s got work tomorrow, and she’ll be fine by herself. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.

She’s good.

She does not go into hysterics.

She keeps a white-knuckled grip on her sanity, splashes water on her cheeks, practices her game face in the mirror, and then goes and prays for a bit in the chapel.

 _God,_ she says, _don’t take him from me. Don’t you dare. He’s too stubborn to die, God, don’t let him._

She exhales heavily, then gets up, dusting off her knees before heading back to the waiting room, nodding at the people she passes by.

Tango’s surgery is expected to last at least six hours, so it’ll be a long wait. Denice takes a deep breath, fiddling with her engagement ring, and prepares to settle in—

“Ford.”

She looks up, surprised.

It’s Whiskey. Of course it’s Whiskey. He looks worried, eyes pinched and mouth a flat line, and when he sits down next to her, he immediately stretches his leg out, so she knows his knee is probably acting up, and honestly, what is he doing here, the chairs are gonna be hell on his back—

He pulls her into a hug.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says. “Came as soon as I heard, but traffic was a bitch.” He shrugs, shoulders shifting beneath her hands. She balls them into fists, clutching at the soft cotton of his shirt, and blinks rapidly at the ceiling, which has gone strangely blurry.

“Whiskey,” she says, helpless, tears starting to track down her face.

“Yeah,” he says, patting her back. “I’m here.”

She finally lets herself cry.

—

Despite her assurances, her parents and her brothers arrive not an hour later. Thankfully, Denice has gotten herself back under control, Whiskey a silent pillar of support at her side as her family joins their vigil. They manage to convince Deandre and Devin to leave when visiting hours are over, but both her parents are retired and Denice knows they aren’t going anywhere now that they’re here.

“Baby, it’s gonna be fine,” her mom tells her when they’re three hours in, holding her hands as Denice stares at the clock.

“I know,” she says.

Her mom squeezes her fingers reassuringly. “You should get some sleep.”

Denice shakes her head. “When it’s over.”

Her mom sighs, but she doesn’t argue.

Next to Denice, Whiskey shifts, arms crossed over his chest. He nudges a knee against hers, and after a moment, she presses back.

The room goes silent again, and they wait.

—

The surgery doesn’t go as well it could; Tango is in a coma, and Dr. Martinez tells Denice that they don’t know when he’ll wake up. It could be six days from now; it could be six months.

Denice stares at Tango, lying there on the hospital bed, shadows under his eyes, skin pale and paper-like, his chest rising and falling while machines beep in the background. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen him so quiet, so lifeless.

Her throat goes tight, and she clutches at his hand. _Wake up,_ she thinks. _Baby, you gotta wake up for me._

“It’s up to him now,” Dr. Martinez says, her eyes gentle. “All we can do is wait.”

Denice nods. “Okay,” she whispers, her famously loud voice muted. “Okay. I can do that.”

She waited three goddamn years for him to wake up and see that she was right there next to him; she can wait for him to wake up now.

—

One day becomes one week; one week becomes two; two weeks become four.

She spends every hour she can spare by his side, which isn’t as much as she’d like—she’s the assistant to the assistant of yet another production assistant at the local news station, and there are bills to pay. Actually, there’re even more bills now that Tango’s been at the hospital for a month and counting.

Or, well, there were _supposed_ to be bills.

“What do you mean I already paid them?” she asks the front desk blankly.

“Uh, it says someone dropped off a check?” the man says. “Do you want to file a complaint?”

She opens her mouth to say yes, then closes it. “No,” she says slowly, “that’s fine. I know who’s responsible.”

And sure enough, when she gets to Tango’s hospital room, the culprit is already there, nonchalantly reading a Spider-Man comic book.

“Hey, Ford,” Whiskey says, looking up briefly to nod at her before going back to his book.

“You paid our bills,” she says, flat.

“Yup,” he says, turning a page.

“The insurance—”

“Wouldn’t cover everything.”

She firms her mouth. “We’ve got more money than anticipated right now. I managed to get most of our deposits back,” she says, referencing her suddenly halted wedding plans. Mentioning that her fiancé is in a coma got a surprising amount of the cancellation paperwork fast-tracked—who’d have thought? Denice smiles mirthlessly at the memory.

Whiskey frowns. “You’re going to need that again later, idiot. Don’t spend it.”

“Whiskey—”

“Did you forget that I’m literally a millionaire?” He looks back up her, and whatever expression is on her face makes him soften. “Ford. You’ve got enough worries. Let me cover this.”

Denice pinches the bridge of her nose, feeling irritation and guilt and stubbornness building up in her, before common sense reasserts itself and tells her she’s being a prideful moron, and that if _she_ had bags of money lying around, she’d do the same for Whiskey.

Denice sighs, her shoulders falling. “Okay,” she says, and then drags a chair over to sit by him, waving him off when he tries to give her his seat. “Gimme the next issue,” she demands, and he hands it over, just like that.

They sit there and pass the time together, Tango’s breathing loud in the background.

—

On April 25th, 2026, Denice tells her sleeping fiancé, “Describe your perfect date.”

He doesn’t answer.

She covers her face with her hands and cries, the cool metal band of her engagement ring pressing against her cheek.

—

Denice waits, and waits, and waits.

“We’re like Snow White and his Lone Dwarf,” she jokes in April.

“Chowder visited. I had to stop him from drawing a shark on your face. You’re welcome,” she tells him in May.

“Baby,” she says in June. “Baby, don’t leave me.”

—

The next day, he wakes up.

For the first five days, she thinks all her prayers have been answered.

Then day six happens. It’s all downhill from there.

—

—

—

Connor is showing Ford cat videos on YouTube when Tango’s hand twitches. The both of them freeze, watching him with bated breath. He’s moved before, even fluttered his lashes like the fairy tale princess that Ford’s taken to joking he’s become, and nothing’s ever come of it, but…

Still—they can’t help but hope.

Tango’s hand stops twitching, and Ford lets out a sigh, a tired, sad sound that Whiskey’s heard way more than he’d like these past few months.

And then Tango opens his eyes.

“Muh?” he says.

Ford _screams._

—

Tango slips in and out of consciousness for most of those first few days, but finally he’s able to stay awake and lucid.

“What the hell, guys?” he croaks. “My arms feel like noodles. I can’t move anything.”

“You’ve been in a coma for three months, idiot, of course you can’t move,” Connor says. This is the eighth time they’ve had this conversation, or a variation of it. The doctors say that this is perfectly normal, and that they should be celebrating the fact that most of his higher cognitive functions seem undamaged, a rarity in cases like this. Tango’s short term memory and sense of time is shot, though, and having to repeatedly explain to him that he nearly _died_ on them is stressing Connor the fuck out.

“What even,” Tango says. There’s a cuff around his ankle to keep him from wandering off, and his hair is a mess, and the hospital gown looks like shit on him, and he’s still tied for the most beautiful sight Connor’s ever seen.

Then the door slides open, and the other person who shares the title for ‘most beautiful sight’ steps through, beaming at them both. “Hey, boys!” Ford says.

Tango blinks. “Ford,” he says, sounding surprised, and Connor rolls his eyes. He probably already forgot that she’d even been here in the first place, and that they literally watched her leave for the cafeteria together.

Ford doesn’t let either Tango’s confusion or Connor’s bad mood faze her. “I brought you some yogurt,” she says cheerfully. “How’ve you guys been?”

“He still thinks I’m lying about him being in a coma,” Connor says, sour.

“Hey!”

Ford snickers. “More like he forgot, I bet.”

“You try waking up in the hospital with everything foggy and weird,” Tango says, petulant. “We’ll see who’s laughing then.”

“Aww, baby, don’t be like that,” Ford placates him, smoothing his hair away from his forehead and leaning down to press a tender kiss to his mouth.

Tango blinks again, staring up at her in shock. “Wait, what?”

Connor sighs. “You just woke up from a coma,” he says, getting ready to start this all over again.

“No, I remember that part—”

“Do you, though?” Connor interrupts.

Tango frowns. “Yes, you asshole. Three months, right? It was a car crash, which makes sense because the last thing I remember doing was driving—”

“Wow, so you _do_ remember,” Connor drawls.

“Ignore him,” Ford says.

Tango worries his lip, gaze darting to her. “But, like…why did you kiss me?”

It’s Ford’s turn to blink. “What do you mean, baby? Did the doctors say I couldn’t?” She sends a questioning glance in Connor’s direction, but Connor just shakes his head, a feeling of foreboding settling heavy in his stomach.

Tango frowns harder. “No, I mean—wouldn’t it be weird to kiss me? You’re seeing that Tinder guy, aren’t you?”

Ford goes very, very still. “Tango,” she says slowly, “what are you talking about?”

Connor leaves the room before he can hear the answer, already yelling for a doctor.

—

So. Tango has amnesia, and thinks it’s still 2019.

Connor can’t believe this is happening.

“Wow, so he managed to erase the entirety of 2020 from his memory? Lucky,” Devin says, then immediately goes, “Ow! What the fuck man!” when Deandre elbows him sharply.

“You idiot, 2020 is when he and Denice got their shit together,” Deandre says.

Devin’s eyes go wide. “Oh, shit, you’re right,” he says. “But, like, he still remembers who she is, right? It’s not the worst it could’ve been, I mean, just think if he didn’t remember _anything—”_

“He _doesn’t_ remember anything!” Ford shouts, hands balled into fists at her sides. “He doesn’t—he doesn’t remember anything about our whole relationship! He had to be _told_ that we’re _engaged—”_ She cuts off abruptly and buries her face in her hands.

Deandre and Devin immediately turn to Connor, the two of them managing to look both helpless and expectant. Connor sighs, and shoulders them aside to pull Ford into a hug. She goes easily, her whole body leaning into his as her arms wrap tight around his waist, her cheekbone pressed right against his heart as his hands settle above the small of her back.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he tells her.

“You don’t know that,” she replies, sounding so hopeless that Connor winces before rallying himself.

“Okay, yeah, things are pretty bad right now,” Connor concedes, “but this is _Tango._ If you give him half a chance, he’ll fall right back in love with you.”

“You think so?” Ford asks, her voice small.

Connor snorts. “Ford, who the hell do you think has had to listen to him go on and on about you for half a decade now?”

Ford laughs, the sound echoing through his body, they’re standing so close. “Thanks,” she says, squeezing him tighter. “I needed that.”

“No problem,” he replies, making no move to let her go until she pulls away herself.

(The feeling of her in his arms is familiar now, as if the act of embracing her is something close to muscle memory by this point. And more times than he can count he’s had to push aside both his desire to hold her closer and his desire to push her away, guilt clawing at his belly when he thinks about Tango lying unconscious while he breathes in the scent of Ford’s hair—

But neither lust nor guilt had any place in their late-night vigils: Ford had needed her friend, and Tango would’ve wanted him to be there for her, so that’s what Connor did.)

—

Connor spends the next few days watching over Tango as he struggles through physical therapy, texting status updates on his progress to Ford while she’s at work.

He’s also doing his level best to get Tango up to speed on the events of the last seven years. Of course, most of his explanations focus on Tango’s relationship with Ford, assisted greatly by the plethora of videos, pictures, and social media posts that Tango himself dedicated to the subject.

Connor watches closely as Tango scrolls through the pictures on his phone, that faint, familiar furrow to his brow that pushes him closer to ‘curious’ rather than ‘confused.’ Seeing it now makes something twist in Connor’s chest, makes him want to shout at him until it’s gone, until he’s back to normal—

“We look happy,” Tango says abruptly. “Ford and me—we look—I look—I look so gone on her, wow.”

“You _are_ gone on her,” Connor says curtly, fighting the urge to grit his teeth. “You’re head over heels for her.” _You idiot,_ he tacks on in the privacy of his own mind.

Maybe if he says it enough times, he can get through Tango’s thick-skulled, amnesiac head and get him back to the way he’s _supposed_ to be.

Tango just frowns. “If you say so, man.”

Connor sucks in a deep breath and reminds himself that taking a newly-awoken coma patient by the shoulders and just shaking him is decidedly against all medical advice on the subject, even if it _would_ make _Connor_ feel better.

 _How’s he doing?_ Ford texts right after.

 _I’m going to murder him in his sleep,_ Connor wants to text back. Before, it would’ve made her laugh. Now, everything is so precarious and uncertain that he’s not sure what it would do.

He erases the message and types out, _Fine._

He’s not fine. Nothing about this is fine. If Tango could see himself now, he’d throw a fit—

But that Tango, _Ford’s_ Tango, _their_ Tango—well.

He isn’t here anymore, is he?

 _You have to be prepared,_ Dr. Martinez had said to them. Connor remembers the way Ford had twisted her engagement ring back and forth, back and forth, her eyes wide and frightened behind her square-framed glasses, how he’d wanted to take her hand and squeeze it in reassurance. _Cases of amnesia are touch and go. Sometimes the memories come back over time, but sometimes not. Sometimes they’re just gone._

Gone. As if what she was talking about wasn’t essentially the death of the person Tango had been, leaving behind a ghost stuck in the past.

( _Come back,_ Connor thinks now, fear and anger and desperation rising in him, _come back, come back, come_ back.

Tango stares at his phone and doesn’t look up.)

—

—

—

To be perfectly honest, this whole amnesia thing _sucks,_ and Tango would like to lodge a complaint with the universe at large for putting him through this. He’s lost seven _years_ of his life—that’s almost high school and college combined!

And _apparently,_ in those seven years, he’s managed to move to California, gotten a job as an interior designer, joined a cosplay group, learned enough Spanish to hold a ten-minute conversation with Whiskey’s grandmother, bought a house, and, oh, yeah, lest he forget, _hooked up_ with _Ford._ And not even, like, casual hooking up! He put a ring on it! There are pictures and everything! Whole fucking albums dedicated to anniversaries, and family parties, and their housewarming, and hanging out with friends they clearly made together as a couple! There’s even an extremely meticulous Pinterest board for their upcoming wedding!

(Which is actually super cool, and Tango totally approves of his future self’s taste in tuxedos and floral arrangements, but he digresses.)

“Does it count as an upcoming wedding if the groom was comatose the day it was supposed to happen, though?” Tango mutters, clinging to the handles of his walker. His walker! Like he’s in his eighties and all his joints have arthritis, except that that’s kind of an apt metaphor since he’s lost a lot of muscle mass these past three months, in addition to a gigantic chunk of his long-term memory.

Stupid brain. Stupid coma. Stupid amnesia.

“Yes,” Whiskey says, curt and angry, because Whiskey’s always curt and angry these days. Tango got fed up once and asked what’d crawled up his ass and died, because _he’s_ the one with amnesia here, but then Whiskey had said, “You, you idiot. _You_ nearly died,” and there’s not really a good comeback for that.

Stupid Whiskey.

“It’s just postponed, baby,” Ford says soothingly. Tango tries not to wince at the endearment. “We’ll have it once you’re back on your feet.”

Back on his feet, ha. Right now, all Tango wants to do is collapse at _her_ feet and sob into her lap while she pets his hair, except he also doesn’t want to do that because she might take it the wrong way, except apparently it would be the _right_ way.

Sometimes he looks at her and thinks, _Holy cow, how the hell did I trick you into falling in love with me?_

Sometimes he looks at Ford and thinks, _We’ve been together longer than I remember knowing you right now._

Sometimes he looks at Ford and thinks, _Oh, my god, we had sex and I don’t even remember it, what the fuck?_

Except he really, really tries not to think about that, because that leads to other, equally uncomfortable thoughts, and while he may have lost thirty-four percent of his muscle mass, his dick has definitely not lost any of its mass, nope, no sirree.

God, being a twenty-nine-year-old amnesiac is really not the time to be realizing that your best-friend-turned-fiancée is super fucking hot.

Except maybe it should? After all, he _is_ going to marry her someday.

Tango wishes the idea of that didn’t simultaneously fill him with panic and guilt, with an extra helping of confused horniness just for kicks.

He catches the eye of Theo, his physical therapist, who just gives him a sympathetic nod, then says, “Fifteen more minutes, buddy.”

“Fifteen!” he squawks. He’s already sweating buckets here! His legs are wobblier than a newborn fawn’s! Fifteen _more_ minutes?

God, his life _sucks._

—

There’s another problem that he’s trying not to think about, especially in the wake of the revelation that his future self is stupidly in love with Ford, and it’s this:

His current self is still stupidly in love with Whiskey.

Look, he thought he was over him, okay? He’d put any hope of ending up with him to rest, knowing that Whiskey was gonna head to the NHL and he was gonna go off and live a normal, quiet life.

…even if sometimes he daydreamed that after Whiskey retired, he’d show up at his doorstep and kiss the daylights out of him.

Anyway! Tango maintains that daydreams are healthy and normal, and, besides, he knew nothing would come of it.

Except now here he is, seven years into the future, and not only is Whiskey already retired, he’s living in the same damn city as Tango! By choice _and_ by design! Okay, mostly by Ford’s design, the way Whiskey tells it, but still.

Whiskey’s with him every day while Ford is at work, monitoring his progress, offering him his version of gruff, prickly, stoic support, and literally picking him up and carrying him back to his bed like a grumpy knight in shining armor.

The fact that he has to do that because Tango collapsed in the hospital cafeteria yet again is something that Tango is conveniently ignoring, though when Ford finds out she yells at Whiskey for ten minutes straight for putting extra weight on his bad knee.

“What bad knee?” Tango asks, bewildered.

Ford winces.

“There was a bad hit,” Whiskey says, dismissive, then changes the subject.

“It took him out of the NHL,” Ford tells him later. She looks down at her clasped hands. “He…had a tough go at it for a while.”

Tango swallows. “Is he—”

“He’s better now, though,” Ford interrupts. “Moving here was good for him.” She quirks a smile at him, faintly amused. “You know Whiskey. He always does better when he has somebody to be grumpy at.”

Tango scowls. “But why does he have to be grumpy at me?” he complains.

“Sorry, but between the two of us, you’re definitely the designated butt-monkey, babe,” Ford says, smiling wider.

(And this time Tango didn’t even feel like wincing. He’s getting used to it, so that’s a good thing, right? Right?)

So, yeah. Even if Whiskey is stressed and annoyed and unfairly mad at him for something that isn’t Tango’s fault—

Well. He’s still here. And he still cares. And it’s obvious that he’s still here _because_ he cares, and that being mad is just his way of saying, “Don’t ever do this to me again, you bastard.”

And all of a sudden, Tango is eighteen again, hopelessly in love with his best friend.

The problem being, of course, that it’s the wrong best friend.

—

If Whiskey is determined to force-feed Tango every detail he knows about the Tango-and-Ford love story, then Ford is the opposite.

She’s gentle, she’s understanding, she’s relentlessly hilarious and absolutely willing to poke fun at him 24/7, and of all the people and all the things he’s reacquainting himself with in his brand-new, suddenly-here future, she is perhaps the only one he can look at and think, _Thank God you’re still the same._

Except she isn’t, can’t be, _shouldn’t_ be. She’s the person he’s in love with, and that means something had to have changed, right?

Right?

 _Tell me,_ he wants to ask her. _Tell me the moment I fell in love with you. We’ll recreate it, we’ll do it all over again. I want to be the person in all those pictures of us together. I want to be the guy who’s right there next to you, making you look at him like there’s nowhere else you’d rather be._

Because Tango _knows_ Ford, and he knows this has to be hurting her, has to be killing her inside—he sees it sometimes, split-second moments where she says something and then looks at him right after, a pause in the conversation that he’s supposed to fill, an inside joke she’s waiting for him to finish, and he doesn’t. He can’t.

And for a moment, just a moment, she’ll look devastated. She’ll look scared, and hurt, and Tango loves her, alright? Even if he’s not _in_ love with her, he never wants her to feel frightened or be in pain, especially not because of him.

So he’ll do it. He’ll get over his thing for Whiskey, and he’ll fall back in love with Ford, and everything will be the way it’s supposed to be, right?

Right.

—

His mom flies in from Philly and nearly breaks his ribs with how hard she hugs him, cussing him out as she does so in the way only third-generation Italian-American women can. Her boyfriend is with her, a nice guy named Greg that Tango doesn’t remember meeting before, though it turns out they’ve only been dating a year, so it’s not so strange that he doesn’t know him all that well.

Seeing his mom interact with Ford is new, though—she’s always been fond of his friends, bossy and affectionate in that loud, warm way of hers, as seen by the way she punches Whiskey in the arm and demands he put her up and let her cook for him. But the way she treats Ford is something different, almost like she’s made of glass, or maybe like she’s something infinitely precious, and seeing his bull-in-a-china-shop mom fuss over her is one-part hilarious, three-parts heart-warming.

“God, I can’t fucking believe my idiot son went and forgot you,” his mom says, tenderly clutching Ford’s face between her hands and pretending he isn’t right there in the room with them.

“Ma, I didn’t forget her,” Tango says.

His mom glares at him before she remembers she’s ignoring him. “Who would forget a gorgeous, funny girl like you?” she tells Ford, who’s snickering quietly. “Men lined up and down the street, begging you to date them, and the moron I raised manages to get amnesia and miss your wedding!”

“I missed the wedding before I got amnesia,” Tango corrects.

“You probably already had amnesia while you were lying there like a corpse, jilting your beautiful bride at the altar,” his mom grumbles. “I raised you better.”

Tango gives up.

Thankfully, Ford defends him. “It’s okay, Mama, I know he didn’t mean to,” she soothes, and Tango almost chokes on his shock before he figures out that it’s his mom who probably demanded Ford call her that. “And look, he woke up! That’s all I wanted him to do.”

Tango feels the knot of guilt in his stomach grow bigger.

His mom sniffs disdainfully. “Would’ve been nice if he woke up with his memories intact.”

“It’s okay,” Ford says firmly, smiling at Tango. “We’ll just make new ones.”

Tango smiles back and fervently prays that this will be true.

—

Ford’s family visits, too, her two brothers and her parents and her grandparents all coming to see him.

“I don’t think your grandfather likes me much,” Tango says once the older folks and Devin, the youngest younger brother, leave.

“Pop-Pop loves you,” Ford declares, but she’s using her lying voice so that’s definitely a giveaway that Tango is correct.

The older younger brother, Deandre, snorts. “Pop-Pop is still hoping you’ll come to your senses and marry that nice Mexican boy from the NHL.”

Tango blinks. “He wants you to marry Whiskey?”

Ford glares at her brother, saying, “Pop-Pop knows damn well that I’m going to marry Tango first.”

“First?” Deandre and Tango echo, exchanging glances.

Ford freezes before clearing her throat. “I meant to say final. Like, I’m going to marry Tango, and that’s final.”

“Uh-huh,” Deandre says, doubtful. He shakes his head before offering a fist for Tango to bump. “Anyway, I’m leaving my crazy sister in your tender hands. Godspeed, brother, and I hope your brain gets better. We still need our white Santa, you know.”

“What?” Tango says, bewildered.

—

“Oh, my god,” Tango says, horrified. “Why are there pictures? Why would you do this to me?”

Ford is hugging herself and cackling with her head thrown back, letting out big, full-belly laughs that shake her whole body. “Your face!” she says.

Whiskey’s leaning against the doorway and smirking at him. “I have a copy of one on my refrigerator,” he says.

Tango’s mouth drops open. “You are dead to me,” he pronounces.

Whiskey smirks wider. “That’s what you said.”

“That’s what he said,” Ford repeats, and then breaks out into more giggles. For somebody so smart and mature, Ford’s humor can be strangely juvenile at times. Tango thinks it’s the theater geek in her, considering that he’s pretty sure her sense of humor predated her stint as the SMH manager, though it _did_ mean that she and Ransom and Holster got along like a house on fire.

“I hate you both,” Tango says. Which is a total lie—he flat-out adores them, hopes they’ll stay in his life forever.

(He lives for days like these, days where they’re all together and he can forget that he’s forgotten so much.)

“No, you looooooooove us,” Ford says, unknowingly echoing his thoughts in a sing-song voice. “You think we’re _gorgeous,_ you want to _hug_ us, you want to _kiss_ us—”

“Ford, what the fuck,” Whiskey says, suddenly annoyed, but Tango is too busy brightening up in recognition to pay him much attention.

“Hey!” he says, grinning widely. “That’s from Miss Congeniality! I love that movie!”

At his words, any hint of humor is instantly wiped from Ford’s face. She swallows. “Yeah,” she says, her voice suspiciously wobbly. “I know.”

“Oh,” Tango says.

“It’s, uh—it’s why we were getting married on April 25th,” Ford says with a little laugh. “Because—”

“It’s the perfect date,” Tango interrupts.

Ford nods. “Uh-huh. Not too hot, not too cold, all you need—” She stops mid-sentence, looking down at her hands.

Looking down at her engagement ring, Tango suddenly realizes. The engagement ring the guy he used to be gave her. He swallows hard, abruptly uncomfortable.

“All you need is a light jacket,” Whiskey finishes for him, and Tango looks up at him in gratitude.

Only to freeze, transfixed, at the sight of his face, at how tenderly he looks at Ford, at how achingly gentle his voice sounds as he speaks to her.

 _Oh,_ Tango thinks.

Then Whiskey looks at him, eyes widening with something that looks an awful lot like guilt before he quickly looks away.

 _Oh,_ Tango thinks again.

—

A very handsome man with dark eyes, brown skin, and cheekbones that could slice through heaven visits Tango the day before he’s finally released from the hospital, sometime in mid-September. With him is a very cute little girl, maybe five years old or a little younger; she looks vaguely familiar, all rich brown skin and a crown of bouncy curls. She proceeds to launch herself at Tango’s knees, shrieking, “Uncle Tony, you’re awake!”

“Keisha, baby, give a man some warning,” her father—at least, Tango assumes he’s her father—says as he thankfully manages to grab a hold of her before she collides with Tango and most likely knocks him over. He’s definitely way better at walking than he used to be, but Dr. Martinez has informed him that it’ll be months before he’s at full-strength again. A particularly stiff breeze could probably push him over, much less a tiny human-turned-cannonball.

The man glances up and turns a mega-watt smile on Tango. “Hey, Tony,” he says, holding his free hand out. “I’m David, one of Denice’s cousin-in-laws. This is my daughter, Keisha. Denice is her godmother.”

“Oh,” Tango says. That explains the ‘Uncle Tony’ bit. He smiles down at her. “Nice to meet you, Keisha.”

She looks at him skeptically. “Mama said you hit your head and forgot everybody,” she says, blunt.

Tango blinks, taken aback. Most everybody else dances around the fact when they meet him again, but he guesses five-year-olds go by different rules. “That’s right.”

“Huh,” she says, squinting at him. “You don’t _look_ like you forgot everybody. You looked way worse when you were napping.”

“Napping?” Tango says blankly.

Keisha nods. “Uh-huh. When you hit your head and you were having a really, really, _really_ long nap. I came to see you, but you didn’t wake up!” She glares up at him, accusing.

 _She is the cutest fucking thing I have ever seen,_ Tango thinks, fascinated.

“Because he was sick, baby, we’ve been over this,” David says patiently.

Keisha hmphs and stomps her foot and turns away, pouting. The expression jogs his memory, and Tango suddenly recognizes her from 2025’s Santa photos.

“Oh, I remember you,” he says out loud.

Keisha’s whole face brightens, and she turns back to him, all anger immediately forgotten. “Really? I knew you would, I knew you were faking!”

“Uh—”

She grabs his hand and tugs him over to the nearest bench, then proceeds to spend the next hour telling him all about her week, which features a lot of robots and unicorns and explosions for somebody who’s in kindergarten, but he figures those parts were embellishments. Keisha likes him a lot, which is surprising since Tango didn’t think he’d be good with kids, but here he is.

Eventually, she falls asleep on him, and he and David have a nice, friendly discussion about Tango’s place in the extended Ford family, and David offers to email him a family tree with pictures and a who’s who so he’s not completely clueless when Thanksgiving rolls around.

“Thanks, man,” Tango says, a lump in his throat.

“Least I could do for family,” David says easily. “Besides, the Diversity Initiative has to look out for one another, huh?”

Tango nods, glad David already explained that part to him. “I owe you,” he says.

“Aw, c’mon, you babysat for us through Keisha’s terrible two’s. It’s no trouble,” David says.

Tango’s mind blanks out for a bit. “Uh-huh,” he eventually says, then they make a little more small-talk, and finally David and Keisha leave, which is good, because then Tango can have a small breakdown.

He just realized that he’s forgotten a whole tiny human who only started existing five years ago. He and Ford could’ve had a baby in the seven years he’s lost, and he would’ve forgotten their name and what they looked like and everything about them, just like he’d forgotten everything else, and how is this his life? How is this _fair?_

Whiskey finds him huddled in the corner of the bathroom, takes one look at him, and sighs, exhausted and long-suffering. Tango braces himself for an annoyed remark, but all Whiskey does is sit down next to him and hug him.

Tango hugs him back and finally feels like he can breathe again.

—

—

—

Having to give a house tour to one’s amnesiac fiancé is definitely one of the odder things anybody can ever do, Denice decides.

“And this is our bedroom,” she declares, swinging the door open so Tango can peer inside. His eyes catch on the bed and stay there, probably going the same places her mind is going.

 _We picked the sheets out together at Target,_ she doesn’t say.

 _We sprung for a California king because you thought it was hilarious to have one when we live in California,_ she doesn’t say.

 _Sometimes you do voices when we’re in the middle of having sex. I didn’t know I could laugh so much during it until I did it with you,_ she doesn’t say.

“Do you want to sleep here or in the guest bedroom?” she asks, matter-of-fact, like they’re just friends, like he’s never gotten down on one knee and asked her to love him for as long as she lived. Like she doesn’t know the sounds he makes when he’s close to coming, like he’s never been so deep inside her she didn’t know where he ended and she began. Like they didn’t plan what the rest of their lives together would look like, right there in that bed.

Tango looks at her, surprised. “Here,” he says, “with you. Obviously.”

Her heart squeezes. “Sure,” she says, smiling, praying he can’t tell that it’s fake. “Sounds good to me.”

—

The next day, she wakes up and opens her eyes, and she can feel him there behind her, just like always, spooning her like the clingy motherfucker he is, one of his big, stupidly sexy hands cupping her breast, because of course he is.

Her first thought is, _This is why we have so much morning sex._

Her second thought is, _Shit, am I late for work? Wait, no, it’s a Saturday. Hell, yeah, we can definitely have morning sex—_

Her third thought is, _He doesn’t remember being in love with you, idiot._

Denice closes her eyes and breathes, in and out, in and out, trying not to cry, trying not to think about how the love of her life is so close and so impossibly far away, all at the same time.

She fails at both attempts.

By the time Tango wakes up, Denice’s already in the shower, letting any trace of her tears wash away.

—

Being in the house again is more than a little strange, partly because watching Tango make his way through it, clutching his cane and staring at everything like he’s seeing it for the first time, is something akin to torture for Denice.

But mostly it’s weird because she hasn’t really been living here either, spending her time at work, at the hospital with Tango, or at her bedroom in Whiskey’s house.

“My place is closer to the hospital,” Whiskey pointed out the first time he had her over.

“It’s a six-bedroom house, just pick one for yourself,” he insisted when it became clear that Tango wasn’t waking up any time soon.

“For fuck’s sake, Ford,” he said after she kept refusing, the kind of annoyed that meant he was trying not to show how much she was worrying him, “stop being so stubborn. You’re getting on my nerves.”

She caved in, the way she always did when it came to him.

—

A week into their new normal, Tango catches her off-guard with a request:

He wants to date her.

He asks her out with that furrow between his brows that makes him look halfway between determined and constipated.

“Uh,” she says, more surprised than she ought to be, “could you say that again?”

“Go out with me,” he repeats. “We can go see a movie! I’ll buy the popcorn. What movies are out? What do you wanna see?” He looks at her, expectant, looking so much like he always does.

(This is the thing that always kills her:

He doesn’t look any different.

His mannerisms, his voice, his face—they’re all still the same. Even his personality isn’t much different from the man he used to be, all the pieces and parts of him having already settled in when he was twenty-two, his experience and confidence the only things he’s missing now at twenty-nine.

And the memories, of course—all those ordinary, unexceptional moments he shared with her and nobody else—dentist’s appointments and traffic delays, filing their taxes and fixing the plumbing, buying groceries and brushing their teeth side-by-side—a thousand tiny things that she never thought to think were precious until they were suddenly gone and she was the only one left to remember.)

“Uh, I think Frozen V is coming out,” she replies after a long, long moment.

Tango’s eyes bug out. “We’re already on _five?”_ he yells.

Despite herself, Denice laughs.

(He was always good at that—making her laugh, that is. That’s another thing that hasn’t changed.

She notes it down and adds it to the list.)

—

They stay at home and watch Frozen III and Frozen IV instead.

“I knew Rapunzel was gonna be related to Anna and Elsa,” Tango says. “Why did they bring back Hans, though? I totally wasn’t expecting—”

Denice leans forward and kisses him.

“Oh,” he says, surprised, eyebrows arching high on his forehead.

“Holy shit,” Denice says right afterwards, slapping a hand over her mouth, “please forget I just did that, that was totally not on purpose—”

Tango leans forward and kisses her this time.

Denice has a moment where her conscience struggles wildly with her desire, and finally just thinks, _Fuck it_.

She pushes Tango back on the couch and crawls into his lap, grinding down on his half-hard cock, her hands on his shoulders like they belong there, kissing him so hard that their teeth clack together painfully.

But she doesn’t care. He’s here, and he’s with her, and she’s not stupid enough to think he’s in love with her—no, she knows what he looks like when he’s in love, and he hasn’t been looking at _her_ like that lately—but she knows that he wants her, and for now, it’s enough.

It’s enough that he’s here, and he’s alive, and he wants her.

The love can come later.

Denice uses every trick in the book, tailored just for him. She pulls on his hair and tugs him where she wants him, feeling viciously triumphant when he groans desperately and goes sweetly pliant, just like she knew he would. She bites at his earlobes, sharp, pushes off his sweatpants and scratches gently at the insides of his thighs, gets down on her knees and sucks lovebites onto his hipbones.

“Ford, please,” he begs when she finally takes him into her mouth, “please, please, please—”

She holds off before he can come, pushing him back so he’s lying flat on the couch and then kneeling over his face, her nails digging into the armrest as he eats her out, sloppy and messy and not anywhere near as skilled as he used to be. Which makes sense because it’s not like he remembers how she likes it, but he dives in with more than enough enthusiasm to make up for it.

And then it hits her:

This is his first time with a woman.

Before Tango, she’d slept with two boyfriends and one girlfriend; before her, Tango had slept with four boyfriends and made it to third base with a one-night stand.

“You’re popping my straight cherry,” he’d told her the first time they’d slept together, winking outrageously, and she’d laughed so much she almost fell off the bed.

She’s not laughing now; she’s gasping incoherently, fingers digging into his scalp as she grinds down, shameless, aching, so wet she _has_ to be making a mess of him.

She was his first then, and she’s his first now, and she’s heard all of Lardo’s explanations that virginity is a patriarchal construct, etc., etc., but she still cries out and comes hard at the thought of it, that she’s having him for the first time again.

“Wow,” Tango says after, eyes wide, and she _does_ laugh this time. “Was that—are you okay?”

“Uh-huh,” she says, wordless for once, mind still slow and hazy from the aftershocks of pleasure.

He squints up at her, and she can barely see him from how fogged up her glasses are. _Should’ve worn my contacts,_ she thinks.

(Tango used to call them her ‘sexy times’ signal. “Some people wear nice underwear. You wear contacts,” he’d said, blue eyes crinkling at the corners, and everything in her had leaned toward him, hopelessly in love.)

Denice fits her hand to the side of his face, fingers tracing over his cheekbones, his high forehead, the hint of his laugh lines at his eyes, his mouth, feeling the grin she can’t quite see in the dark.

She’s known him for eleven years now, and loved him for nine.

She thinks, _You’re supposed to be mine._

He turns his head and presses a kiss to her palm. “Hey,” he says.

She waits expectantly for an ‘I love you’ that doesn’t come, then closes her eyes and suppresses the urge to howl like a woman gone mad when she realizes what she’s doing.

“Hey, yourself,” she manages after a moment.

At that, Tango sits up slowly so they’re sitting face to face, his hand trailing up her spine and cupping the back of her head as he kisses her, sweet and shy, like he’s not quite sure what he’s doing but he wants to figure it out. Wants to figure _her_ out.

And all her defenses crumble, just like that.

Her thighs are slick and shaking when she finally settles over him and takes him, makes him hers, her eyes locked on his like her life depends on it.

When she comes, she bites her lip so hard she bleeds, all to keep from saying, _I love you_.

—

Just one more year. If only he’d remembered just one more year.

—

When Whiskey told her, months ago now, that if she gave Tango half a chance, he’d fall back in love with her, the thing she felt most was relief.

 _He’s right,_ she thought.

Mentally, Tango was twenty-two; he fell in love with her at twenty-three, and she didn’t do anything particularly different, just stayed in his proximity. Past experience suggests that if she waits him out for a year, maybe a little less, events will repeat themselves.

Of course, back then she didn’t have to account for Whiskey himself.

—

Denice knows first-hand what it looks like when Tango’s in love, the exact tilt of his mouth, the precise brightness of his eyes when he’s head over heels for somebody.

She spent the better part of five years watching him look that way at Whiskey, and then nearly six years watching him look that way at her.

She knows what he looks like when he’s in love, and he’s definitely in love right now.

He’s just not in love with _her._

—

On Wednesday evenings, Whiskey comes by for dinner, and Denice makes Tango stay in the kitchen while she answers the door by herself.

“Hey, Ford,” Whiskey says, no gifts in hand, not anymore, which is perfect because there’s nothing in the way when she throws her arms around him and hugs him tight.

“Hi, Whiskey,” she says, and she lets herself breathe before letting him come inside.

Of course, it’s not just Wednesday nights that he’s here anymore—he visits a lot to keep an eye on Tango, make sure he hasn’t fallen or exhausted himself. He’s at their place more than his own some weeks, but he always makes sure to wait until the evening to come on Wednesdays.

Denice wonders if he’s trying to recreate those perfect nights, back when he was on the mend, and Tango wasn’t hurt, and Denice herself had been happy, on top of the world and certain that nothing could go wrong.

It’s almost funny how naïve she’d been. Almost.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Whiskey slip an envelope under the vase on the coffee table. “Whiskey,” she says, exasperated.

“What?” he says, unfazed and unrepentant.

She bites her lip. “I can pay my own mortgage,” she says.

Whiskey gives her a look. “You can, but Tango can’t,” he points out, which has the unfortunate quality of being true. Tango’s gotten a lot better, but his job requires long commutes and a lot of decision-making, and more physical labor than most people imagine goes into interior design, none of which he can handle right now. He hasn’t been able to go back to work just yet, and would probably need to be retrained regardless, which means their household income is half of what it used to be.

Denice scowls anyway. “And if you were paying just for Tango’s half, I’d be more inclined to accept.”

Whiskey shrugs. “Too bad I’m one of those annoying millionaires who has no concept of how much anything costs.”

Denice rolls her eyes.

Whiskey smiles. “If it’s really too much, then you can put the extra in a savings account, use it for your kids’ college funds,” he says.

Denice pauses. “Whiskey—”

“What, I can’t pay for my future godchildren’s education?” he says, amused.

Denice closes her eyes for a second to just settle herself and breathe, then places one hand on her hip and uses the other to shake her finger at him. “Don’t think I’ll let you get away with this in the future, mister,” she tells him.

Whiskey just smirks at her and puts his hands in his pockets. “Looking forward to seeing how you’ll stop me,” he says, a particular glint in his eye that heats Denice’s blood, a reaction that she studiously ignores.

She looks away and clears her throat. “Come on, we’re keeping Tango waiting.”

She turns around and heads for the dining room, very aware of Whiskey following right behind her.

—

In the plan she had for her life before a car crash sent her fiancé into a coma and then subsequently gave him amnesia, Denice had thought that she and Tango would have successfully seduced Whiskey by this November. They were supposed to get married, come back from their honeymoon, and then continue wining and dining Whiskey until he figured out that they were madly in love with him. Denice had been planning on letting Tango in on said plan on the plane ride home, though she had a feeling he already suspected it.

Alas, the car crash did happen, and instead of seducing Whiskey, Whiskey has instead unwittingly seduced Tango, while all of Denice’s efforts to seduce either of them have come to nothing.

Well, not that she was trying to seduce Whiskey after the crash. If she’d managed to do so while Tango was still unconscious, it would have felt too close to cheating on him, and too close to using Whiskey solely for her own comfort. It would have ruined everything.

Then Tango woke up, and everything was ruined anyway.

—

The terrible thing is that Denice knows he’s trying. He’s _trying_ to love her, she can feel it with every fiber of her being, how hard he’s making himself fall for her when he’s already in love with someone else.

If she were a better person, a stronger person, she’d do them both a favor and walk away.

She’s not, though—she’s selfish and weak enough to make him stay, to hold him to the word of a person who doesn’t even exist anymore. She’s terrible enough, greedy enough, to use guilt to get what she wants, and what she wants is him.

(What she wants is for him to love her, but if she can’t have that, then she’ll settle for what she _can_ get.)

—

Ford plans on skipping Thanksgiving at Patrice’s eighty percent for Tango’s sake and twenty percent for her own.

The perfectly serviceable list of reasons for doing so:  
  


  1. Tango was still recovering.
  2. Her family was A Lot™ on normal days, under normal circumstances. During holidays, while Tango had amnesia? Ha. Ha. Ha.
  3. She really didn’t need to start a feud by punching Angelica when she inevitably said something bitchy.
  4. Patrice and David deserved better than said fight happening at their house.
  5. They could just invite Whiskey over and have Chinese take-out while they watch _Miss Congeniality_ for the twenty-sixth time, and doesn’t that sound so much nicer?



  
Unfortunately, Tango has gotten it into his head to go.

“It’s Thanksgiving! We should spend it with family,” he says.

“No,” she says.

“Your mom promised me her excellent green bean casserole,” he says.

“No,” she says.

“Keisha helped quiz me on who everybody is! We can’t let that go to waste,” he says.

At that last remark, Denice scowls, replying, “Keisha doesn’t even know who everybody is yet.”

Tango gasps. “Are you doubting my esteemed colleague?” he says, raising a brow.

Denice crosses her arms. “She’s five, she doesn’t remember anybody she doesn’t like.”

“She did seem a little confused on who Angelica was,” Tango concedes, “but I still think she was great help.” And then he has the gall to pull out his puppy dog eyes. “C’mon, babe, for me?” he asks.

And Denice, just like always, relents.

—

—

—

In hindsight, Tango might have bitten off a little more than he could chew when it came to Thanksgiving.

Like, he _thought_ he was ready—and he kinda was! He knew who everybody was, and was totally able to match names to faces, just like he told Ford he could!

It’s just…meeting a whole bunch of people all at once, all of whom know him way better than he knows them, is unsettling on a visceral level.

Like, Tango knows he has amnesia, okay? He knows a huge chunk of his life has just poofed out of existence, and he’s been slowly working on rebuilding all the relationships that his memory loss has damaged, from updating old friendships to relearning new ones, from catching up with Whiskey to slowly, quietly doing his best to fall back in love with Ford.

And he’s making progress! He knows he is.

But there’s nothing quite like looking out at a sea of faces, people who clearly know you and love you, people who treat you like you’re their _family,_ and then having to watch as they realize you don’t feel the same way, that you _can’t_ feel the same way.

That really, you’re not the person they love at all. Just somebody who has his face.

He may or may not have taken that badly, especially when Stuart—one of Ford’s first cousins, her Uncle Tim’s eldest son, happily married to Susan—all important facts, none of which stops him from simultaneously feeling like he’s an imposter _and_ that Stuart is way too fucking friendly for someone he just met two hours ago, except really he met him six years ago, _but Tango doesn’t remember that—_

Anyway, Stuart watches Tango play with Keisha, who’s automatically his favorite because nothing about their relationship has changed despite his memory loss, since all that matters to her is that he carries her on his shoulders and gives her cookies. Somehow, though, watching Tango with Keisha apparently gives Stuart license to say, “Man, you’re such a natural with kids. You’re gonna be a great dad.”

Which causes Tango to laugh, uncomfortable, and say, “Nah, probably not? I mean, I’m not really planning on having kids. Or, well, maybe one? If I find somebody to settle down with, but how likely is that, huh?”

And then he glances up and sees Ford standing in the doorway looking devastated, having clearly heard every stupid, moronic word he just spouted like a thoughtless idiot.

“Oh, fuck,” he says.

Keisha gasps. “Uncle Tony! No bad words!”

Oh, great, he fucked that up, too. Tango winces. “Sorry, kiddo, I gotta go,” he says, patting her on the head before grabbing his cane and hobbling after Ford, who spends the rest of the party avoiding him until they leave early.

The car ride home is the most awkward thing he’s ever lived through.

“I didn’t mean it,” he tries. “I just—I just forgot.”

“I know,” Ford says, keeping her eyes on the road.

“I’m gonna settle down with you, obviously,” he says.

Ford stays silent for a long moment. “I didn’t know you didn’t want kids,” she eventually says, which is—not promising, to say the least.

Tango winces. “I kind of do? Sort of?”

Ford frowns. “Sort of,” she repeats, unimpressed.

Tango doesn’t know how to explain that he only wants kids if his partner promises to never leave him to raise them alone and make them feel like they’ve been abandoned by someone who was biologically hardwired to love them. Just his luck that past-him never shared that particular tidbit of trauma. “I’d want kids with you,” Tango says instead, and this is true. Ford would never leave him; he’s only been awake for half a year, but even he can tell that she’ll love him for the rest of her life.

And—and Ford would make a _great_ mom. Any kids of hers would be happy, even if he was the dad. He thinks he could take that risk, now that he’s thought about it.

…which is probably the conclusion past-him came to. Huh.

Tango blinks, a piece of the puzzle falling into place, feeling like he’s caught a glimpse of the guy he used to be.

Ford interrupts his realization by laughing, the sound ugly and disbelieving. “Really?” she says. “You’d want kids with me?”

“Well, yeah—”

“Not with Whiskey?”

The question punches the air from his lungs.

“Wha—what are you talking about?” he says, reeling. “With _Whiskey?”_

Ford doesn’t say anything, just gets off the I-15 and parks them at a gas station parking lot. Tango notices that she’s clutching the wheel so tightly that her knuckles are white.

“I’m not an idiot,” Ford says, biting the words out, a staccato rhythm of anger. “You think I don’t see the way you look at him? You think I don’t remember who you were in love with at twenty-two? Who the fuck do you think picked up the pieces when he broke your heart?”

“Ford—babe—”

“Don’t call me that!” she screams, the sound loud in the confines of the car. She puts her hands over her face, her shoulders shaking. “Don’t call me that,” she repeats, quieter now, sounding fragile.

Tango doesn’t know what to do. “But I’m engaged to you,” he says. “I’m going to marry _you.”_

She shakes her head once, twice. “Don’t kid yourself. That was somebody else, that was—that was—that was the Tango who was in love with me. _He’s_ the guy who wanted to marry me, the guy who wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.” She sucks in a ragged breath. “Do you really think you’re that guy right now?”

Tango can’t say anything to that.

Ford makes a low, hurt sound that tears his heart to pieces. “Let’s break up,” she says.

“Okay,” Tango agrees helplessly. If this is what she wants, then he has to agree. “Okay.”

—

—

—

Connor wakes up the day after Thanksgiving to find Ford sitting on his couch, red-eyed, surrounded by tissues, clearly a heartbroken mess.

“Ford,” he says, alarmed, moving quickly towards her. “What is it? Did something happen to Tango? Is he hurt?”

She shakes her head. “No,” she says, her voice shaking. “I dropped him off at the hospital for physical therapy, he’s fine, nothing’s wrong, I just—”

“Bullshit,” Connor says, grabbing her hands. “What’s wrong, Ford? C’mon, how am I supposed to help you if you don’t tell me?”

“We broke up,” she says out of nowhere.

Connor stares at her. “Wait, what?”

“We broke up,” she repeats.

Yeah, that makes less sense than the first time she said it. Connor shakes his head. “What the fuck? Ford, if Tango said something—”

“It was me,” she interrupts. “I asked him to—I should’ve done it ages ago, but I couldn’t, I wanted—I just wanted him to love me again. Why doesn’t he love me again, Whiskey?” She starts crying, great, wracking sobs tearing out of her throat, and if she wasn’t clutching his hands, Connor would have stood up to go and punch Tango in the face, brain damage be damned. He couldn’t get any worse than he was now.

“I’m going to murder him,” Connor announces.

“No,” Ford says, shaking her head, “you can’t. You have to—you have to take care of him for me.” She looks at him with pleading eyes. “You’ll be good to him, right?”

Connor goes still; it’s like there’s ice in his veins. “Ford, what are you talking about?” he says slowly.

She pulls her hands away and stands, suddenly angry. “Oh, come on, Whiskey! He’s in love with you!” she shouts. “He’s—he’s in love with you, okay, he always has been—”

“He’s in love with _you,”_ Connor snarls.

Ford shakes her head again. “Not anymore,” she says.

“Oh, fuck that fucking bullshit,” Connor says, getting to his feet, too.

“But it’s true!” Ford shouts, gesturing angrily. She glares up at him defiantly, looking like she wants to shake some sense into him, which is rich of her. He’s not the one who’s lost his damn mind here. She continues, “He’s not in love with me anymore! He stopped, okay? He forgot everything, and he stopped, and it turns out the only reason he fell in love with me in the first place is because _you_ were out of the picture, and now he’s only with me because of guilt!”

“That’s not true—”

“It is! It is true!” All of a sudden, Ford looks near to tears, her shoulders slumping as the fight leaks out of her. “And guess what, Whiskey? I’m such a horrible fucking person that I _used_ that to get him to stay with me—I _made_ him stay with me, even though I knew how he felt about you, even though I knew you felt the same—”

Connor grabs her face and kisses her, all his fierce anger and burning protectiveness and pent-up longing getting the better of him.

“Oh,” Ford says after they come up for air, her eyes wide, glasses slightly askew.

“You’re not a horrible person,” Connor says. “You’re—I’m—you—you’re the best person, I know, okay? Don’t say that about yourself.”

“Oh,” Ford says again, eyes going wider, like there was something even remotely surprising about what he said.

(What he doesn’t know is this:

Ford is fluent in Whiskey-speak, and in Whiskey-speak he basically confessed that he’s in love with her. Surprise is the only reaction she could have had.)

Connor pulls her close and kisses her again; they don’t talk much at all, after that.

—

Connor leaves Ford asleep in his bed, a note on the bedside table, and then goes to pick up Tango at the hospital, feeling like the worst asshole in the history of the world.

After all, it’s definitely against the bro code to sleep with your best friend’s girl the day after they break up.

But it’s fine—they’re not going to _stay_ broken up, not if he has anything to say about it. He’s going to fix this, and then he’ll apologize, and it’ll all be fine—well. It’d _better_ be fine. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if he can’t fix this, if he’s fucked everything up beyond repair.

God, _why_ did he sleep with her? What the hell was he thinking?

(He thought she needed him—that’s what he’d been thinking.

Connor’s never been any good at saying no to Ford, not when she means it.)

When he arrives, Tango is sitting on the bench by the parking structure, looking pathetic and sad. When he sees that it’s Connor picking him up, the sadness is temporarily taken over by surprise. “Whiskey!” he says. “What are you doing here—?”

“Shut up and get in the car,” Connor growls.

Tango’s mouth clicks shut. After a beat, he nods, leveraging himself up slowly. Connor eyes the way he’s moving and then curses, undoing his seatbelt and getting out of the car.

Tango figures out what he’s planning and objects: “Hey! I can do this—”

“I know, but I have things to say to you, jackass,” Connor grumbles as he reaches him. “We’ll be here until Judgment Day if I leave it up to you.”

“We will _not,”_ Tango says, outraged.

Connor hauls him up anyway and places him in the front passenger seat, ignoring his pout. “There we go,” he mutters, heading back to his own seat.

Then, because he’s a coward with avoidant issues, he doesn’t say anything even after he starts driving.

“I thought you had things to say to me,” Tango says, petulant.

“I do,” Connor says. “I just—I’m trying to—”

“Oh,” Tango says, realization coloring his voice, “this is about Ford dumping me.”

“Yes—I mean, no—I mean—wait a minute, what do you mean _she_ dumped you?” Connor demands.

Tango sags into the seat. “I mean that she said she asked me if I loved her, and I couldn’t say yes—”

“Tango, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard—”

“I’m not in love with her!” Tango bursts out, angry. “It’s not stupid! It’s the truth! I’m—I’m trying to be, okay? And I _could_ fall in love with her, I know I could—I know I _am,_ but I can’t ask her to wait for me to get my shit together, okay? She’s already putting so much of her life on hold to take care of me, and I’m not even the guy she’s in love with! I’m just—just the fucking knock-off, the stupid failed save version—I lost seven years of my life! I don’t remember how to do my job, I can’t help pay the bills, I just spent six months in the fucking hospital, _and_ I have fucking amnesia! I don’t remember anything! Like, what kind of fiancé doesn’t even remember how he proposed, for god’s sake!”

“It’s better that you don’t, actually,” Connor says automatically.

Tango gapes at him, knocked off-balance. “Huh?”

Connor blushes. “You, uh, you forgot the ring in the car when you proposed.”

Tango stares. “I forgot the ring.”

“Yeah.”

“In the car.”

“Uh-huh. Left it in your jacket, then left that in the car.”

Tango furrows his brows. “So what did I do, just get down on one knee and ask her to marry me _without_ a ring?”

Connor shrugs. “Pretty much, yeah.”

“…oh, my god,” Tango breathes. “How the fuck did I ever get Ford to fall in love with me?”

“Beats me,” Connor says. “If I knew, I would’ve copied you.” He registers what he said a second after he says it, then freezes.

Tango glances at him with shrewd eyes. “Huh. So you’re admitting you’re in love with my fiancée now.”

Fuck, does that mean Tango already _knows?_ “I’m not admitting shit,” Connor says.

Tango narrows his eyes. “Oh, really? Because I’ve seen the way you look at her, buddy, and I think—”

“I slept with Ford,” Connor blurts out.

Tango flinches.

Well, look at that. Guess he _is_ admitting shit. Connor exhales heavily; silence reigns for a long, tense moment.

Then Tango asks, quiet, “Was it when I was in a coma?”

It’s Connor’s turn to flinch. “What! No! It was this morning, you asshole, Ford wouldn’t fucking cheat on you, and I would never do that to my best friend!”

“Right,” Tango says, looking relieved. Then, tentative, “So, like, you’re with Ford now?”

Connor grits his teeth. “No.”

How the hell did he get himself into this mess? He should never have slept with Ford—except of course he slept with Ford, he was never going to turn her down if the opportunity presented itself.

It didn’t mean that he wouldn’t do his level best to make her happy, though, and he’s known for years that he’s not the guy who’ll do that for her.

Tango frowns. “But you just said—”

“She’s in love with _you,”_ he says, cutting him off. “She broke up with you because she thinks you’re in love with me, and she loves you so much she decided to be a fucking martyr about it.”

“Ah,” Tango says, then completely blows Connor’s mind by following it up with, “so she told you about that part.”

“What the _fuck?”_ Connor yells. “You’re _in love_ with me?”

“Well, duh,” Tango says, as if this was common knowledge and not some batshit conspiracy theory Ford came up with due to all the stress. Tango crosses his arms. “I wasn’t going to do anything about it, though. You were clearly in love with Ford.”

Connor splutters, “Well, yeah, but—”

“Ha! So you _are_ in love with her!” Tango says, pointing at him triumphantly.

Damn it.

Connor sighs. “Maybe,” he concedes.

“I knew it,” Tango mutters. He runs a hand through his hair. “Wow, this is a mess.”

“Tell me about it,” Connor scoffs. “Anyway, I’m taking you back to my place so you and Ford can get back together.”

“Hmm,” Tango says.

“What?” Connor asks, defensive.

“Is that going to solve anything, though?” Tango says, giving him a questioning look.

“What the hell do you mean?” Connor says, feeling exhausted.

Tango gestures with one hand. “I mean, as far as I can see, you’re in love with Ford.”

Connor clenches his jaw so hard he can feel the muscles jumping. “We’ve established that, yes.”

“And Ford is love with me,” Tango says, ticking the point off a second finger.

“Obviously.”

Tango nods, holding out a third finger. “But I’m in love with you.”

“I’m sure that’ll be fixed if you really think about it for a few seconds,” Connor says.

Tango snorts. “Don’t think so.”

“Well, it was worth a shot,” Connor says, shrugging.

Tango goes quiet for a bit, before saying, “I think it’s better this way, though.”

Connor raises a sardonic brow. “Better to be in a three-way unrequited love triangle?”

“Maybe?” Tango frowns, clearly frustrated. “I just think—what if we all tried to be together, and nobody was left out? Like, this way I’d be happy because I wouldn’t feel guilty about not remembering stuff, because there’d be nothing to remember with you. And then I don’t have to force myself to stop loving you, which would make it easier to start loving Ford again. And you’d be happy because you’d get to be with Ford, and you’d be there to support her while I get my act together. And Ford would be happy because she’d have both of us, instead of neither like she was initially planning.”

Connor just stares, incredulous.

Tango glares. “Don’t look at me like that! If Lardo can have two boyfriends, why not Ford!”

“Because Lardo’s boyfriends are Ransom and Holster,” Connor says, then winces. Even as he says it, he knows that’s a weak defense.

“Then Ford’s boyfriends will be you and me,” Tango says, nodding. “This is gonna fix everything, you’ll see.”

“It will not!”

“Will, too!”

“Will not!”

—

“—and so I told him I think we should all date.”

Ford is sitting on the couch again, staring at them both. She’s wearing one of Connor’s shirts, a fact he’s doing his level best not to notice. It’s big on her, leaving her collarbones and several hickeys exposed. He’s trying not to notice that, too, and also trying not to think about the fact that, just this morning, they had sex on the couch she’s sitting on.

He’s not doing a very good job, if he’s being honest.

“You still want to date me?” Ford says blankly.

“Of course I do!” Tango says, which is the first thing he’s said that made any sense, in Connor’s opinion, but he’s not going to say anything to Tango until he no longer wants to strangle him. Tango leans forward, grabbing Ford’s hands. “Ford,” he says, “you were right; I’m not in love with you.”

Ford flinches, and Connor winces, too, hurting for her.

“Ah, ah, ah!” Tango says, shaking his head. “Let me finish!” He looks at her determinedly. “I’m not in love with you _yet—_ but I know I’m going to be.”

“Tango,” she starts.

“Babe,” Tango says, squeezing her hands tighter. “Babe, if you give me a chance, I will be so stupidly in love with you, I know it.” He smiles at her, his blue eyes achingly earnest. “I know I’m slow on the uptake, and I’m sorry to make you go through this again, but I swear I’ll make it up to you.”

Ford’s eyes fill with tears. “Are you sure?” she asks.

Tango nods.

Ford closes her eyes, relief and joy flooding her face. Then she opens her eyes and looks right at Connor. “And what about you?” she asks.

Connor clears his throat. Time to put his cards on the table, he guesses. “I’m not in love with him,” he admits.

Tango pouts. “Way to rub it in.”

“…but I’m not _not_ in love with him.”

Ford’s mouth ticks up in a smirk as Tango gapes at him. “Thought so.”

Tango pokes him. “Is that what we’re calling it? Not-not in love with you? Who ever heard of something like that? I demand a re-do.”

“Shut up, Tangredi, this is hard enough for me as it is,” he mutters, batting Tango’s hand away, then turns back to Ford and raises a questioning brow in her direction.

Ford nods. “So you’d be willing to share?”

Connor takes a deep breath. “Only if I get to share you,” he tells her, looking her right in the eye.

Ford covers her mouth with both her hands. “Holy shit, you _are_ in love with me,” she breathes.

Connor looks down, blushing. “Kinda, yeah.”

“Since when?” she demands.

“Senior year,” he admits.

“What!” Tango yells. “Oh, my god, you were not, I totally would have noticed!”

Ford shakes her head, amused. “No way, babe, you didn’t even notice that _I_ was in love with _you_ back then.”

“You were _what?”_ Tango squawks. “No, you were not!” He turns to Connor, expectant. “Back me up here.”

Connor shrugs. “I don’t what you expect me to say, man. She was gone on you since junior year.”

Tango covers his face with his hands. “Oh, god, how did I not notice?”

“Because you’re an oblivious idiot,” Connor says bluntly.

“Hey!” Tango protests.

At that, Ford giggles, sounding happier than she has in weeks. She leans forward and tugs Tango’s hands down, cupping his face in her hands. “It’s fine,” she says. “You’re _my_ idiot.” And then she kisses him, chaste and sweet and passionate all at once, and once she’s done, she turns to Connor and kisses him just the same.

When Connor opens his eyes, Tango is sitting right there with expectant eyes, that big, happy grin on his face.

Obviously the only choice Connor has is to kiss it off him. So he does, Tango opening up for him easy as anything, trembling beneath his hands while Ford presses against his side, a steady, warm presence, everything he’s ever wanted and more right there waiting for him.

Connor closes his eyes and lets himself have them both.

—

—

—

_A few months later:_

Denice wakes up on May the 4th squashed between her two boyfriends.

“Connor,” she says, poking the one in front of her, “babe, I can’t breathe.”

“Can’t do anything. I’m asleep,” he mutters.

Denice sighs, then attempts to extricate herself from her other boyfriend’s embrace. ‘Attempts’ being the key word there. She is, unfortunately, unsuccessful. “Connor,” she sighs.

“Whack him with a pillow,” is his advice.

And, well, what does she have to lose at this point? Denice shrugs and grabs the pillow she’s sharing with Tango, lifting it up—

—except that there’s a small box beneath it.

“What?” she says, staring at it in shock.

Tango’s arm tightens around her waist, and he laughs behind her, low and mischievous. In front of her, Whiskey turns over, a smirk on his stupidly sexy face, bedroom eyes glinting with happiness.

“Call this a do-over,” Tango says, kissing the back of her neck, “with an assist from Connor Whisk. Denice Ford, will you do us the honor of marrying—”

“Yes,” Ford interrupts, beaming, grinning wide as she can. “Yes, I will.”

And she does.

—

**Author's Note:**

> Have paragraphs of end-notes, because I spent four years and tens of thousands of dollars for the right to proclaim myself an I’ve-read-far-more-boring-things-than-thou literary geek:
> 
> The title is a reference both to Shakespeare’s _The Tempest,_ which I love, and to T.S. Eliot’s _The Waste Land,_ which I love _and_ hate, and which itself was also alluding to the _The Tempest_. We get today’s definition of ‘sea change’ from the former, meaning a great transformation. From the latter, we get the line ‘April is the cruelest month,’ appropriate since April 25th was Tango and Ford’s original wedding date, itself a reference to the film _Miss Congeniality._ For those curious, I gave my own obsession with Sandra Bullock rom-coms to Tango, and couldn’t resist. Forgive me.
> 
> Minimal research to how comas and amnesia work was done for this fic, so please also forgive any license I took with medical accuracy for the sake of plot.
> 
> The plot itself was taken from the following prompt: “Character A develops amnesia while in love with Character B. A does not fall in love with B again. B has to watch the person they love fall in love with someone else (character C) as they grapple with determining if A even is that same person they fell in love with. (play with the idea of memories and experiences developing and determining who a person is and becomes).”
> 
> Thank you again to Linnea, for being a wonderful friend and for giving me prompts that ate my damn brain; my sister G, for always being my loyal, loving beta—this fic wouldn’t have been finished without your expressions of anguish fueling me, my darling; the Parse Posse and Heart Hotel Discords, for their constant support and friendship; and for all the mods and participants of [Heartbreak Fest 2020](https://omgcpheartbreakfest.tumblr.com/). Huzzah! Long live angst, and long live those of us who write it!
> 
> As always, a huge, huge thank you for anyone who’s read this work, and any of my others. I really appreciate you taking a chance on this rarepair love of mine, especially since the premise is such a heart-render. Please also give the other works in this fest a gander, if you, like me, need a little bitter to make the sweetness sweeter. <3
> 
> Find me rarely [on tumblr](https://halfdesertedstreets.tumblr.com) and [on twitter](https://twitter.com/halfdesertedsts), and more commonly on Discord at anna#4954.
> 
> Last of all, here’s to getting back up after getting kicked down, and to never giving up. Stay safe, be kind to yourself, thank you for reading, and I sincerely hope you have a good day today. <3 <3 <3


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